Sonos CEO Steps Down After App Update Fallout

Sonos has announced that Patrick Spence is stepping down as CEO and Board Member, effective immediately.

Tom Conrad, a long-serving independent Board member, has been appointed Interim CEO, said Sonos on Monday. The company is now searching for a permanent CEO with help from an executive search firm.

The leadership change comes after recent challenges, including a widely criticized update to the Sonos app, that broke speakers for numerous customers. Sonos has released updates to the app to bring back lost features, but the PR damage has been done. The company said this transition is unrelated to its upcoming fiscal first-quarter results, set to be reported on February 6, 2025.

“On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Patrick for his contributions as CEO,” said Julius Genachowski, Chair of the Board of Directors, on Monday. “During his tenure, Patrick built on our pioneering success in wireless home audio and led the Company’s expansion into premium audio for home theatre, portables, and headphones. We appreciate Patrick’s dedication to Sonos.”

“I am deeply honoured to step into this role at such an important moment for Sonos,” said Conrad. “Nearly two decades ago, when I led the earliest initiative to integrate Pandora and Sonos, I got my first glimpse of the magic that Sonos could bring to millions of lives every day. 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. Together, we will focus on delivering extraordinary experiences for our customers and strong results for our shareholders.”

In an internal email to employees obtained by Bloomberg, Conrad acknowledged the app failures. “When it doesn’t work, our customers are taken out of the moment and are right‬ to feel that we’ve let them down,” read the email. “I think we’ll all agree that this year we’ve let far too many‬ people down.”

We haven’t had any issues with our Sonos system after the app update (knock on wood), but many people have. It’s definitely frustrating to drop thousands on Sonos speakers to only see that they don’t work as intended anymore.