Personnel Notes

Rey Ramsey is stepping down as head of TechNet.

Ramsey has been president and CEO of the tech industry trade group for more than three years. He is leaving the association to “pursue new opportunities,” according to a statement from the group.

Alma Whitten, Google's director of privacy for product and engineering, is retiring after spending a decade with the search giant, the company confirmed on Monday.

Whitten has testified before Congress on Google's efforts to protect consumer data, which has come under intense scrutiny by lawmakers in recent years. 

Lawrence You, who has served in various leadership roles on the company's privacy team, will assume Whitten's role. You has been with Google for eight years and will report to Eric Grosse, vice president of security and privacy engineering. Grosse also oversaw Whitten during her time at the search company.

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Sherrese Smith, chief counsel and legal adviser to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski, will leave the commission in the coming weeks.

Smith is the last remaining member of the chairman's original team of legal advisers and plays a key role in the chairman's office. She is responsible for managing the commission's overall policy agenda and coordinating between its various bureaus and offices, according to the FCC website.

Smith said she hasn't decided what her next steps will be, but predicted that she will likely "stay in this space in some capacity" and is ready for her next challenge.

"I've been there for four years and I've accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish," Smith told The Hill. "I'm leaving things in great hands."

In a statement, Genachowski said it would be "difficult" to bid goodbye to Smith and lauded her work at the FCC. The FCC chairman called Smith "one of the most respected and well-liked people at the commission."

Former Rep. Mary Bono Mack is headed to K Street, where the longtime GOP California lawmaker will consult on issues involving technology, Internet privacy and energy for FaegreBD Consulting, the lobby shop announced Tuesday.

Bono Mack has signed on as a senior vice president at the firm’s Washington office, where she’ll also work on intellectual property rights and entertainment issues, the company said. She is prohibited by federal rules from lobbying for one year. 

Robert Holleyman, the longtime president and CEO of software lobbying organization BSA, announced on Friday that he will step down at the end of April.

The organization's executive committee has launched a search for his successor. 

Holleyman is leaving to launch a new company, Cloud4Growth, that will focus on helping governments and organizations use cloud technology. He will continue to serve as a senior adviser to BSA Chairman Pascal Di Fronzo, the group said.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the lobbying group for the video game industry, announced Wednesday that it has hired Ali Amirhooshmand and Danielle Rodman, longtime veterans of Capitol Hill.

The move comes amid heightened scrutiny of the industry since last year’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. Lawmakers have questioned whether violent video games contribute to real world violence and suggested that increased regulation of the industry might be needed.

Amirhooshmand and Rodman will serve as directors of federal government affairs for the lobbying organization.

Yael Weinman is leaving the Federal Trade Commission to join the Information Technology Industry Council next month, the tech lobbying firm announced on Monday.

Weinman will serve as vice president for global privacy policy and general counsel at ITI, where she will leverage her past experience working on privacy and data protection issues at the FTC. Weinman currently serves as an attorney adviser to FTC Commissioner Julie Brill, where she specializes in domestic and international privacy and data security issues. 

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is assuming control of the Senate subcommittee in charge of the budgets of the financial agencies.

The former head of an Energy Department research and development program is heading to Google to lead its energy strategy.

Arun Majumdar will join Google after leaving his most recent post as director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) in June.

“One of the world’s biggest challenges is bringing reliable, sustainable and affordable energy to everyone. We need a new energy blueprint for the future — the latest advances in technology have the potential to bring us closer to that goal than ever before,” Matthew Stepka, vice president of Google.org, said Monday of Majumdar’s hiring on the Internet giant’s “green blog.”

Hillary Clinton's former campaign manager Mark Penn is joining Microsoft as a corporate vice president.