Dive Brief:
- Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is departing the company and stepping down from the board of directors, the company announced Monday. The move comes after a botched app roll out in May caused customer uproar.
- Tom Conrad, an independent member of the board of directors, took the helm as interim CEO Monday. The board has initiated a search for a permanent CEO.
- "Tom’s mandate is to improve the Sonos core experience for our customers, while optimizing our business to drive innovation and financial performance,” Julius Genachowski, chair of the board of directors, said in a prepared statement.
Dive Insight:
In May, Sonos unveiled a redesigned app. Its user interface led to customer uproar.
In October, the company promised it would win back customer trust with a seven-point plan. The company set its sights on fixing the app, improving customer support and winning back customers.
Such efforts would cost the company $20 million to $30 million across Q4 and Q1, Spence said during the company’s October earnings call. The investments were necessary as the app failure had hit the company’s bottom line.
“The app situation has become a headwind to existing product sales, and we believe our focus needs to be addressing the app ahead of everything else,” Spence said.
To fix the app, Sonos tapped Conrad’s expertise. Conrad, who has 30 years of experience in software engineering, was “helping us ensure our software efforts are on the right track as well as providing another expert perspective,” Spence said on the earnings call.
On that call, Spence also took the heat for the backfired app.
“While the redesign of the app was and remains the right thing to do, our execution, my execution fell short of the mark,” Spence said. “Since I took over as CEO, one of my particular points of emphasis has been the imperative for Sonos to move faster. That is what led to my promise to deliver at least two new products every year, a promise we have successfully delivered on."
"With the app, however, my push for speed backfired,” he said.
Conrad is the outgoing CEO of Zero Longevity Science, a former executive at Snap Inc. and former CTO and EVP of product at Pandora.
“I am excited to work with our team to restore the reliability and user experience that have defined Sonos, while bringing innovative new products to market,” he said in a prepared statement Monday.
The company will report its first quarter results on Feb. 6.
