Who will be the next Sonos CEO?

Smart speaker maker Sonos has been without a permanent CEO since it parted ways with its former chief executive Patrick Spence in January. Back then, the company got long-time board member Tom Conrad to step in as interim CEO, with the idea that Conrad’s product exec background would help Sonos recover from the fallout over its botched app relaunch.

On Wednesday, Conrad was asked during the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings call how the search for a successor is going. Conrad answered by saying that the Sonos board continues its search and may announce “a world-class leader for the company’s next chapter.” And then he added this: “I remain a candidate.”

Conrad has been on the Sonos board since 2017, and has in the past been chief product officer at Quibi and Pandora, as well as VP of Product at Snapchat. (Fun fact: While at Pandora, he helped kickstart a would-be Sonos competitor.)

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He also left his CEO job at diet startup Zero Longevity to step into the interim CEO role at Sonos, and even moved his family to Santa Barbara. In other words: Conrad really, really wants to be Sonos CEO for good — and we may soon hear if he gets the gig.

Some other interesting tidbits from the call:

• Tariffs were top of mind for many of the analysts asking questions. Sonos execs said that the company is well-positioned to deal with the issue since it moved all of its US-bound production out of China during and following Trump’s previous stint in the White House.

• However, CFO Saori Casey also admitted that dealing with the tariffs is “very much a work in progress.” “We are evaluating pricing and promotion strategies,” Conrad added.

• Sonos doesn’t expect much of an additional tariff burden for this quarter, but anticipates that it will have to pay as much as $40 million in import taxes in the second half of the year.

• Sonos apparently has no plans to release any additional products during this and the next quarter, and will instead focus on further improving its software. The company had originally planned to release a TV streaming devices this year, but recently cancelled those plans.

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Photo courtesy of Sonos.