Apple veteran takes Sonos CFO seat

Dive Brief:

Sonos on Tuesday named Saori Casey — tech giant Apple’s vice president of finance for over a decade — as the wireless speaker and audio gear-maker’s new CFO.
Casey, 56, will succeed Eddie Lazarus, who will shift to take on the new role of chief strategy officer while keeping his other current responsibilities as chief legal officer and corporate secretary, effective Jan. 22, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Lazarus took on the additional title of interim CFO in August 2022, replacing then CFO Brittany Bagley, who left to take the financial helm at Taser-maker Axon.
Santa Barbara, California-based Sonos has been under financial pressure amid a slump in the broader U.S. consumer technology sector. The outlook could brighten this year as consumers are expected to begin replacing products acquired during the pandemic, with consumer tech sales revenue forecast to tick back up 2% year-over-year in 2024 after declining an estimated 10% in 2023 from 2022 levels, according to Circana, an advisory firm which tracks consumer behavior.

Dive Insight:

Casey is joining a firm that recently initiated a restructuring. The company cut jobs last year as sales fell amid the broader slowdown in consumer tech spending, even as the company also planned to expand into headphones, Bloomberg News reported in November. As of Sept. 30, the company had 1,867 full-time employees according to Sonos’ 10-K filing.

The company reported a GAAP net loss of $31.2 million in the fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, as revenue fell 3.5% from the year-earlier period to $305.1 million on a constant-currency basis. The company also reported $5.5 million in restructuring and abandonment charges during the period.

Casey has deep experience with two major tech firms. She worked at Cupertino, California-based Apple from July 2011 to December and, prior to that, helped numerous roles at San Jose, California-based Cisco Systems over the course of 15 years. She holds a Bachelors of Arts in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.B.A. from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University.

She will receive a base salary of $550,000 and will be eligible to receive an annual cash incentive bonus with a target equal to 65% of her salary, according to an SEC filing.