Who, What, Where

James J. McDevitt has been appointed president and chief executive of Authoria Inc., a Waltham-based provider of talent management software. The previous chief executive, company founder Tod Loofbourrow, will serve as company chairman. Before joining Authoria, McDevitt was chief operating officer of CDC Software, a $360 million division of CDC Corp.

Roger W. Crandall (left) and William F. Glavin Jr., two co-chief operating officers of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Springfield, have been promoted. Crandall will assume the position of president from Stuart H. Reese, who remains chairman and chief executive. Glavin has been appointed chief executive of OppenheimerFunds Inc., effective Jan. 1. He succeeds John V. Murphy, who will remain as chairman of OppenheimerFunds until his retirement at the end of 2009. At Babson Capital Management LLC, an investment unit of MassMutual, Thomas Finke will be promoted to the positions of chairman and chief executive, titles previously held by Crandall. Finke also has been named executive vice president and chief investment officer of MassMutual. Finke's current title at Babson Capital is president. Clifford Noreen, head of corporate securities and vice chairman of Babson Capital, will succeed Finke as Babson Capital president. Finke will continue to report to Crandall.

Meanwhile, in separate news, Robert Shull (right) and Tiffany Hanks have been appointed third-party administrators for MassMutual Retirement Services, part of MassMutual Financial Group of Springfield. Shull, who has been with MassMutual since early 2007, supports MassMutual's sales representatives and third-party administrators in the states that make up MassMutual's Western region, and Hanks is now manager of the Eastern region. She most recently served as third-party administrator regional manager for ING in Hartford, Conn

Lars Svensson, M.D., has been appointed to the position of chief surgical officer at Cardiosolutions Inc., a Stoughton company that is developing its proprietary Percu-Pro System, a through-the-skin minimally invasive procedure for delivering a Mitra-Spacer into the heart for mitigating mitral regurgitation. Svensson is currently the director of the Center for Aortic Surgery and director of the Marfan Syndrome and Connective Tissue Disorder Clinic in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Cleveland Clinic. Svensson will lead the company's new effort in exploring the potential for the surgical delivery of its Mitra-Spacer technology, which is done through a small chest incision.

Gadi Lachman has been appointed as the chief operating officer for Eliza Corp., a Beverly company that specializes in the design, development, and hosting of speech recognition software applications exclusively in healthcare. Before joining Eliza, Lachman was a vice president at the TriZetto Group.

Konstantinos Andrikopoulos has joined RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp. as vice president, legal counsel, and chief intellectual property counsel. RXi Pharmaceuticals is a Worcester-based biopharmaceutical company pursuing the development and commercialization of proprietary therapeutics based on RNA interference. Before joining RXi Pharmaceuticals, Andrikopoulos spent six years at Shire Human Genetic Therapies Inc., formerly known as Transkaryotic Therapies Inc.

Michael Kanellos has been appointed editor in chief of Greentech Media Inc., a Cambridge-based Internet media and research firm covering the greentech/cleantech markets. "Providing focused coverage of specific greentech vertical markets will be important to better serve the needs of our readers going forward, and I'm excited about guiding Greentech Media's online content toward that end," Kanellos said in a statement.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)