Sonos Officially Names Tom Conrad as CEO

Tom Conrad, Sonos’ interim CEO and president since January, has been officially named to the top job at the speaker company, it was announced Wednesday (July 23).

Conrad took over the CEO role on an interim basis in January from  Patrick Spence, who stepped down after the speaker company struggled with revenue and sales following a fraught redesign of its mobile app. Under Conrad, Sonos has launched software enhancements for the Sonos Ace and Arc Ultra and cleared the pipeline for new products, the company said.

“Since the beginning of this year, we’ve reestablished clarity, focus, and momentum at Sonos,” said Conrad in a statement. “We’ve dramatically improved our software products and recommitted to delivering the kind of premium experience our customers expect. I’m so excited to move from rebuilding to imagining the next generation of experiences.”

Conrad will remain an independent member of the Sonos board. Board chair Julius Genachowski said Conrad “earned the confidence of our employees, customers, partners and shareholders by restoring urgency” to improving the company’s customer experience.

Updates launched last year to Sonos’ technology frustrated customers who said the app didn’t recognize existing Sonos speakers and made it difficult to link new speakers. The complaints forced the company to lay off staff, lower holiday sales projections and delay product launches, with fixes projected to cost between $20 million and $30 million.

“He has a compelling vision for Sonos’ future, with strong plans to harness technology to benefit our
customers, as AI and other advances reframe the landscape and unlock new opportunities,” Genachowski said.

Conrad, 55, previously served as the chief product officer at Quibi and vp of product at Snap; he was also Pandora’s chief technology officer/executive vp of product for a time, during which he oversaw one of the earliest integrations of Pandora and Sonos. 

Sonos will host an earnings call to discuss its most recent quarterly earnings on Aug. 6.