Venable hires Yardly Pollas-Kimble, who has been chief of staff to Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., as partner, Legislative and Government Affairs Practice ... Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, hires Lee Lonsberry of KSL NewsRadio as communications director, effective in early April ... Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) names Arthur D'Andrea as chair, Public Utility Commission; D’Andrea was appointed to the PUC in 2017 for a term ending Sept. 1, 2023; he replaces Chairman DeAnn Walker, who resigned after power outages during a massive winter storm (see here) ... Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) appoints Keith Kurber, ex-Harvest Church pastor, to Regulatory Commission of Alaska for six-year term, a job needing legislative OK, replacing Commissioner Stephen McAlpine, term just ended.
Access Partnership appoints Kaisu Karvala, ex-Rovio Entertainment, to lead its team for Europe and U.K. ... Software & Information Industry Association adds Jen Smith, ex-MCI marketing firm, as director-Associations, Media and Publishing Network ... Uber hires Fio360's CR Wooters as director-federal public affairs ... Rob Currie, Dish Network senior vice president, Ting Mobile and mobile virtual network operator platforms, to lead Republic Wireless once Dish acquisition is complete in Q2 (see 2103080023).
Entercom hires Tim Clarke, ex-Cox Media Group, as senior vice president-market manager, Entercom Boston, and moves up Claudia Menegus to market manager, Entercom Miami; she also remains regional president of Entercom Gainesville, Memphis, Miami and Orlando ... Smart Global hires Thierry Pellegrino from Dell Technologies as president-specialty computing business ... Velodyne Lidar hires Sinclair Vass from Focuslight Technologies as chief commercial officer, succeeding Mike Jellen, promoted to chief strategy officer.
Data Communications Management names Advantage Group International’s Richard Kellam president-CEO to replace Gregory Cochrane, now vice chairman ... TVSquared adds former Kantar Media Global CEO Andy Brown as executive adviser ... Walmart adds former AT&T Chairman-CEO Randall Stephenson to the board, which expands to 12 members ... Quantum Loophole adds ex-CyrusOne CEO Gary Wojtaszek to its board.