Clinkle Bolsters Its Executive Roster with Web Veterans

Clinkle, the payments startup that’s generated financial backing from Silicon Valley investors and rampant speculation about its technology model, has hired a pair of Web technology veterans as it ramps up for a launch next year.

Andrew Rendich was named vice president of operations and Allison Hopkins was named vice president of talent. Both executives have worked for Netflix under Barry McCarthy, the former Netflix CFO who Clinkle hired in October to be COO.

Rendich will be responsible for IT infrastructure support, data warehouse operations and customer service. Rendich joins Clinkle from Walmart.com, where he was senior vice president of supply chain and logistics, and has worked in software and operations for more than 20 years, including a stint as chief service and operations officer at Netflix.

Hopkins will be responsible for Clinkle’s talent acquisition and organization development strategies. She was most recently the senior vice president of human resources at Palo Alto Networks, and also held senior human resources positions at Hewlett-Packard and E*Trade. She was also vice president of human resources for Netflix.

Clinkle has not revealed a lot about its technology model, though it plans to enable payments with a reduce reliance on hardware or software. It will reportedly do this by using high-frequency sound emitted by smartphone speakers, similar to technology used by Alipay and shopkick. PayPal achieves a similar effect using Bluetooth in its Beacon device.