January 14, 2025 – In a sudden move, smart speaker company Sonos has announced the immediate resignation of its Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Spence, with the change taking effect as of today. Board member Tom Conrad has stepped into the role of Interim CEO.
This executive shuffle stems from the troubled launch of a new Sonos app in May 2024. The app was released missing crucial features, sparking intense user backlash and triggering a chain of events that included layoffs, a significant drop in employee morale, and public apologies from the company’s upper management. Despite the subsequent release of the highly anticipated Ace headphones, their sales performance was severely impacted by the app issues. Internal sources reveal that Ace headphone sales remain underwhelming to this day. Since spring, Sonos’ community forums and Reddit threads have been flooded with user complaints and negative sentiments.

In October 2024, Sonos attempted to address the situation, which had escalated into a full-blown PR crisis, by devising a turnaround plan. The company pledged to strengthen its product development principles, enhance internal transparency, and take other measures to prevent similar mistakes from happening again. Additionally, Sonos hired a crisis management PR firm to assist in navigating the predicament. However, three months later, both the board and Spence agreed that these measures were insufficient, ultimately leading to Spence’s resignation.
In a phone interview, Sonos spokesperson Erin Pategas stated, “We will initiate a search for a new CEO, looking for a leader who can carry on the company’s tradition and collaborate with the team to propel the company forward.” She described the leadership change as “turning the page on the current chapter and opening a new path towards what we and our customers expect.”
Notably, Sonos does not plan to revert to the old app version. Pategas emphasized that the company remains fully committed to the new app, which has seen numerous bugs fixed and some previously missing features gradually added over the past few months. Nevertheless, users continue to complain about issues such as speakers randomly disappearing from the app.
Patrick Spence joined Sonos in 2012 as Chief Commercial Officer and later ascended to the position of CEO. Under his leadership, Sonos launched a series of successful hardware products, including critically acclaimed Soundbars like the latest Arc Ultra, portable speakers Move and Roam, and the forward-thinking Era 300 spatial audio speaker. However, the failure of the new app and Spence’s delayed apology after the issue erupted ultimately tarnished his reputation among the company’s loyal users.
According to an 8K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Spence will remain with the company until June 30, 2025, receiving a base salary of 7,500permonthforproviding”strategicconsultingservices.”Afterthisperiod,hewillreceiveaseverancepackageof1.875 million.
Tom Conrad, the Interim CEO, joined the Sonos board in 2017. He served as Chief Technology Officer at Pandora for a decade and was Vice President of Product at Snapchat for two years. He also contributed to the development of Apple’s Finder software. Most recently, Conrad held the position of Chief Product Officer at the short-lived streaming service Quibi. Pategas believes that Conrad, with his deep understanding of the company’s current situation, is an ideal candidate for the interim role. Conrad, along with Chief Innovation Officer Nick Millington, has been leading the app repair efforts for several months.
Despite the significant executive change, Sonos’ future product pipeline will proceed as planned. Rumors suggest that the company’s next major product will be a streaming video player, positioning it to compete with giants like Apple, Roku, Amazon, and Google in the living room entertainment space.