Hogan Lovells promotes Tony Lin to partner and Arpan Sura to counsel, both global regulatory-communications, internet and media, while Aaron Oakley and Ernest Yakob advance to partners-intellectual property, media and technology ... Democracy Forward names Sean Lev, ex-FCC, legal director ... New America Open Technology Institute hires Lauren Sarkesian, ex-office of Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., as senior policy counsel.
Global Automakers and Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers join to form Alliance for Automotive Innovation headed by John Bozzella, from Global Automakers ... Microsoft promotes Ed Britan, ex-Alston & Bird, to senior director-policy counsel, issues including privacy and artificial intelligence for government affairs, and hires from WeWork Elizabeth Hockersmith as communications manager-U.S. public policy.
Verizon appoints Rathi Murthy, from Gap, chief technology officer ... US Ignite promotes Chief Operating Officer Joe Kochan to CEO and Nick Maynard to COO; outgoing Executive Director Bill Wallace moves to executive chairman of the smart cities public-private partnership firm, succeeding Sue Spradley ... Bluebird Network advances Elliott Gillespie and Doug Zerr to vice presidents, respectively, operations and engineering ... Weiming Li returns to Source Photonics as president-CEO, succeeding Doug Wright, resigns.
Cable Hall of Fame 2020 inductees: Bridget Baker, Baker Media; Jim Blackley, Charter Communications; Cathy Hughes and Alfred Liggins, Urban One; Jeff Marcus, ex-Crestview Partners; David Watson, Comcast; and Jeff Zucker, WarnerMedia ... Ethernet Alliance inducts Peter Jones, Cisco, as chair.