2023-06-14 05:01:53
“The time has come”
In this same press release, the now former manager is very little quoted. “After nearly a decade of steady growth and strengthening market leadership in multiple categories, I believe the time is right to step down,” says Bracken Darrell. He continues, “I want to thank all of the amazing people at Logitech for the work they’ve done over the years. I will work with Guy and the board to ensure a smooth transition and I will continue to be a customer, shareholder and ardent fan of Logitech and its products.”
It is therefore Guy Gecht, current member of the board of directors, who becomes emergency director with immediate effect. Administrator since 2019, he himself will be replaced as soon as a long-term director is found by Logitech. Guy Gecht is the former founder and co-director of E.Merge Technology Acquisition Corp. He is currently also a member of the Board of Directors of Check Point Software Technology.
Restructuring
Bracken Darrell leaves voluntarily, a priori. There would be no link with recent news. In recent months, the news had not been good for Logitech. In March, the company laid off around 300 employees, including “a limited amount in Switzerland”, without anyone knowing more. Logitech has approximately 400 employees in the country and 8,200 employees worldwide. This restructuring came following declining figures and several earnings warnings. In early May, when presenting its 2022-2023 annual results, Logitech reported a 17% drop in revenue to $4.54 billion. For the first six months of the 2023/2024 fiscal year, Logitech forecast revenue between $1.8 billion and $1.9 billion, down 18 to 22 percent year-on-year.
So much for the past few months and the months to come, Logitech evolving in a difficult market, in particular because of the fall in the sale of computers and the return to the office for many employees. But in the long run, Bracken Darrell made Logitech a success. This former Whirlpool executive refocused the company on design, mobile speakers, gaming and videoconferencing. Before his arrival, Logitech was losing money, hesitating on its strategy and had had several directors at its head in the space of a few months, without notable success.
Many successes
Then Bracken Darrell arrived, restructuring the company, deciding on redundancies, simplifying the organization and focusing on the consumer. With success. On LinkedIn, the manager wrote this, summarizing what happened: “Over the past ten years, the Logitech team has accomplished a lot. It multiplied the value of the company tenfold. She built a video conferencing company from scratch to become the industry leader. She grew our tiny gaming business from $40 million to over $1 billion in revenue. She turned a tired, declining office business into a $2 billion+ business and a high-growth machine. And we have gained market share in almost all of our categories along the way.”
Bracken Darrell adds that the company has won countless design awards and that his company has entered, under his era, the prestigious SMI index of the Swiss stock exchange. On LinkedIn, Bracken Darrell, who thanks a lot of people, gives no indication of his future. He concludes his post thus: “I will soon leave for new adventures… but tonight, I will play basketball.”
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