On 1 March 2011, Tue Mantoni, currently a member of Bang & Olufsen’s Board of Directors, will take up the position of President & CEO of the company. Kalle Hvidt Nielsen will step down as President & CEO of Bang & Olufsen on 28 February 2011. However, Kalle Hvidt Nielsen will remain with Bang & Olufsen until the end of June to facilitate the handover to Tue Mantoni and also to ensure continuity in the company’s product development function.

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/new-president-and-CEO

 

Looks like he didn't go voluntarily. This is what hesays in the press release linked to above:

 

With Bang & Olufsen in this strengthened position, I had been looking forward to heading the next phase, focusing on developing the brand further and boosting revenue and earnings. However, the Board of Directors now wants another profile to take over, which I respect of course, and I will do what I can to ensure the smoothest possible transition.”

 

Not a long reign. I wonder what happens now

OK, wonder why that is...?

 

I'm not changing pants as often as they are changing CEO's...

Thanks for sharing the news. I`m wondering too.....????

Stefan

Yup, it seems like the board of directors are simply wielding power for the sake of it.

He'll be leaving the position the 28th of february, which is a pretty short notice to be honest. Kicked out, it seems.

It's a shame, because he had proven he had what it takes to turn around the sinking ship.

I'm glad I don't work in their development department. Maybe everything will change for the worse now, just when my hopes had begun to come alive.

 

Hard to say what's happening behind the scenes, but this is not good news I'm afraid...

Finally...

B&O are in desperate need of at younger CEO with a passion for gadgets and tecnological evolvement. How old are the people in the board of directors? It does not matter wether or not the board knows everytning about making money on a theoretical basis if they have absolutly no clue about what is happening in the market for audio and tv products. An Ipod Dock in 2010.... WOW, what a great idear, where do i sign up? Where is the guy supposed to raise the question about Airplay, inbulid beolink wireless etc. Where is the guy asking about automatic SW updates over the internet on ALL newer products, the guy saying that a 30+ sec startup on the DVB-HD module is not acceptable. B&O sell their stuff at prices SO high, they should have every oppotunity to make something exceptional...But they dont. Howcome someone does not inform the board, that making products with outdated technology and selling them for 4 times the price of a technological supperior brand will NOT be a success in the long run...

Come on...

 

By the way, I am selling my B&O so if anyone is interested, PM Me :-)

 

/Ehlerz

From my understanding there have recently been a great deal of management changes which have really changed the way B&O was operating. I hope that this time this CEO actually finishes the job with some decent new products despite the internal turmoil.

Is that how they thank him for restoring profit?????

Doesn't sound good to me either, the new CEO may be young, but he has little knowledge of audio-video gear & digital media integration, I'm afraid...or are they going to fit Triumph motorbikes with ALT tweeters?

Yes he was a commerial director for Triumph, while Hvidt was a technical person.

Just yesterday, Microsoft announced they will place more technical people in the top management to compete against Apple and Google and restore the creativity of the company.

 

Microsoft restoring the creativity of the company?

Amusing.

It's a deficit of creative culture and a surplus of arrogance that is plaguing both Microsoft and B&O. Trouble is, Hvidt Nielsen kept a lot of the wrong people when he took over as CEO, particularly the gang responsible for USA and Asia, who had managed to convince the board these regions would be B&O's salvation.

Meanwhile, steadfast, loyal and expectant core B&O customers were resoundingly ignored. As someone wrote in a comments thread at one of the Danish newspapers announcing the change:

I bought a B&O television in the late 80s, and haven't replaced it with another B&O, because subsequent televisions from the company were wildly overpriced compared to other offerings. At one point, there wasn't a decent home in Denmark which didn't have something from B&O, usually at least a television. Now you're hard pressed to find anything from B&O in the same homes.

Another commenter adds that it would be useful if new televisions, such as the BeoVision 10, would work with what he already had. (Possibly his dealer doesn't know how to make it work, or doesn't want to make new work with old.)

There was a brief moment around 2005/2006 when B&O could have realigned sensibly - then they went "looking for the biggest rich sucker". At least the new boss knows what the company is doing, and doesn't have to learn everything from the ground up.

 

Now we have another piece of the Brian Petersen drama.  Stay tuned for the next episode of "Who's in charge here"

This seems really strange. I cannot understand the logic behind this. Kalle is and was a technical person and that is the core of B&O - manufacturing technical products.

And now the new ceo is a marketing guy... Well hope he has some ace in his sleeve.

Quite shocking, I must say. I thought that they (B&o) had made some good progress as of late. Perhaps not perfect, but certainly some steps in the right direction. There was a mention of some price drops recently in a thread here. Might we be seeing the start of a realignment of the company -and its short term outlook meaning primarily an adjustment of pricing from a marketing rather than technical perspective?

Boss of Nokia talking to his troops. A memo that wasn't supposed to go public.

Something similar probably making the rounds at B&O. What infuriates is how these companies insist on not joining technology opportunities when they are shoutin "All on board."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37ecf3fe-3432-11e0-993f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1DTwHi2rm

soundproof:

Microsoft restoring the creativity of the company?

Amusing.

It's a deficit of creative culture and a surplus of arrogance that is plaguing both Microsoft and B&O. Trouble is, Hvidt Nielsen kept a lot of the wrong people when he took over as CEO, particularly the gang responsible for USA and Asia, who had managed to convince the board these regions would be B&O's salvation.

Meanwhile, steadfast, loyal and expectant core B&O customers were resoundingly ignored. As someone wrote in a comments thread at one of the Danish newspapers announcing the change:

Exactly. However, I hope the new CEO will change this and stay longer. Too many changes in top management, like the arrogance and the lack of creativity and are not an asset.

Indeed a very troubling bit of news. It's more than time for better marketing AND a much needed infusion of fresh engineering and design blood.
They have been developing new things for ages, but we haven't seen real results of it in years. 

I do agree some of the core clientele has been fully ignored. (Even more so here in North America where most of the dealers are specialized in full home theater/automatization installs for the upper end market.) 

However.. waiting 2-3 weeks for even common replacement parts  (beolab8000 tweeter) having to be fedexed from Denmark is just a lack of service from B&O's part in my opinion. There should be a faster way to care for a still current in catalog premium product like that.  It means I cannot use my speakers for 3 weeks !!!! The parts are fully overpriced though that in itself is fine with me, but usually I can only get them if they can do 'change over ' for me (at full service fees, off course.....)

The higher end the product the better the service has to be. Even my Miele brand dishwasher (a niche brand here in Canada) got fixed THE DAY AFTER I called service about a problem... 

Due to it sell first and ship later system, it also seems that most regular B&O items are now all airfreight shipped from Europe further jacking up the costs unnecessarily imo, and creating waiting times that should be out of the question for this level of product. 

Though I mourn the decision of stopping production of the iconic BS1 and BS3200, I fully agree that these products have more than finished their life cycle and consequently can make room for long overdue newer products. The new BS8 is a perfect contemporary replacement for the BS1 in my opinion.

It even has got my wife excited about a tech product as it docks her ipad and sounds really good. 

I was getting slowly excited again seeing that they actually made an effort with the new BV10 and BS8 to reach a wider market and having more up-to-date products in the pipeline.

 

cooldude:

Indeed a very troubling bit of news. It's more than time for better marketing AND a much needed infusion of fresh engineering and design blood.
They have been developing new things for ages, but we haven't seen real results of it in years. 

I do agree some of the core clientele has been fully ignored. (Even more so here in North America where most of the dealers are specialized in full home theater/automatization installs for the upper end market.) 

However.. waiting 2-3 weeks for even common replacement parts  (beolab8000 tweeter) having to be fedexed from Denmark is just a lack of service from B&O's part in my opinion. There should be a faster way to care for a still current in catalog premium product like that.  It means I cannot use my speakers for 3 weeks !!!! The parts are fully overpriced though that in itself is fine with me, but usually I can only get them if they can do 'change over ' for me (at full service fees, off course.....)

The higher end the product the better the service has to be. Even my Miele brand dishwasher (a niche brand here in Canada) got fixed THE DAY AFTER I called service about a problem... 

Due to it sell first and ship later system, it also seems that most regular B&O items are now all airfreight shipped from Europe further jacking up the costs unnecessarily imo, and creating waiting times that should be out of the question for this level of product. 

Though I mourn the decision of stopping production of the iconic BS1 and BS3200, I fully agree that these products have more than finished their life cycle and consequently can make room for long overdue newer products. The new BS8 is a perfect contemporary replacement for the BS1 in my opinion.

It even has got my wife excited about a tech product as it docks her ipad and sounds really good. 

 

I was getting slowly excited again seeing that they actually made an effort with the new BV10 and BS8 to reach a wider market and having more up-to-date products in the pipeline.

 

 

...........on the other hand, if the change means a redirection back to the previous "typical" customer (in Europe anyway) who may be in the market for a single audio system or TV then I'm all for it (perhaps along with realigning the prices with said customers typical income, as it once was).

In the letter there is a hint that the new CEO is part of the next step in Bang & Olufsen’s development. So Kalle Hvidt N. has accomplished his part with success ?! , lets see what the next step will be like.

And there will be a third step till another milestone is reached along with the next ceo swap. its like a strategic football game  :) ok little more complicated .

 

@soundproof , the internal nokia memo is a fake ...

Don't think so, Tomasz. It went out on the intranet and was confirmed as authentic by sources both to BBC and FT.

B&O needs to get rid of a lot of old hands, and it's also time for David Lewis to let someone else come in and take charge of the future of the brand, with sota solutions.

Hvidt Nielsen, in statements to the press, is quite clear that he would have liked to stay on.

Brands are i.n a lot of trouble these days. Too much attention to shareholders, too little to product and customers.

soundproof:

...Too much attention to shareholders, too little to product and customers.

I agree on this. Nowadays it's more important to deliver good values for the stock market by raising profits ... You remember B&o in the 90ties ? No stock market pressure, they only focused on loyal b&o customers, it was all about the products...

B&O hasn't caught on in America yet because they refuse to put dippin' sauce holders in the remotes. Until Americans can dip their chicken fingers, onion rings, steak skewers, etc. into a savory sauce held in their remote, they'll seek out other manufacturers. Simple as that. 

Tomaz:

I agree on this. Nowadays it's more important to deliver good values for the stock market by raising profits ... You remember B&o in the 90ties ? No stock market pressure, they only focused on loyal b&o customers, it was all about the products...

If you look for articles on the internet regarding the new CEO, there is a lot of positive he seems have done in his years at Triumph.

Of interest, for example in the article in the independent, he mentioned that although design for Triumph in the UK, most manufacturing is done in Asia to keep competitive. Of even more interest I found this article at a Belgian site (Dutch) in which he clearly state a number of decisions which where made to move Triumph in the good direction (among others):

 

1. Make choices in the product portfolio in line with your key market (they for example stopped the design of a Hayabusy competitor)
2. Align your products with the key reasons why people are buying your product (he also highlight that Triumph customers are not bound to a particular social group in any sense)
3. Build a brand wellknown in a positive way by even non customers (which not necessary need to buy the product too..)
4. Support for the dealer network

 

We will see, at least you can say that there is enough room for improvement

Well, Mantoni has been on the board for eighteen months. Let's hope they'll listen to him now that he's CEO.

They're still in love with making inroads in China, but the Chinese need more convincing than B&O can afford. The Chinese check that a brand has Fu. No Fu, I don't buy you.

Ah, they could have been selling their active speakers as if they had a monopoly on the technology, if they had only accepted the fact that potential (young) customers already had something to hook them up to. A study about the disconnect between B&O and the below 40 segment was released recently, and I suspect that is behind this reshuffle.

For what it's worth - I hope the brand gets sorted out, and soon.