Sonos continues to clean up internal space after chief commercial officer departs

In the third reshuffle of the company's leadership, I can report that Chief Commercial Officer Deirdre Findlay will also be resigning. Sonos' corporate governance page, which has not yet been updated, says Findlay "is responsible for overseeing all marketing, revenue and customer experience organizations at Sonos. She is responsible for comprehensive brand strategy, geographic expansion strategy and all market execution."

So far, there's no doubt that Sonos' go-to-market strategy for its rebuilt mobile app is deeply flawed and rushed. Before losing his job, Spence eventually admitted that the company should take a more cautious approach and offer new software in beta form while retaining previous, more stable versions. Instead, Sonos delivered a flawed experience to all customers and spent months dealing with the fallout.

Do you know more about what went wrong with Sonos under Patrick Spence?

in my time edgeI've covered Sonos more comprehensively than any other company (and I want to be fair). Yes, there's a long list of product leaks, but I'm more interested in revealing all the frustrations the new app has caused customers and employees, as well as the bad decisions that caused Sonos to go off the rails. These choices have an impact on rank-and-file employees who do their best for the brand.

If you have more to share about your experience at Sonos last year, please contact me confidentially and securely via Signal: (845)445-8455 or Chris Welch.01. You can also contact me via DM on Bluesky, X or Instagram.

As far as marketing goes, some Sonos employees expressed to me their frustration with how much money the company spent on advertising last year. Big spending includes a massive promotional campaign for Sonos Ace headphones in the New York City subway and a staggeringly expensive holiday elf campaign. I think the Ace headphones were a very good product, but when the severity of the Sonos app issues came into focus, they were quickly forgotten and therefore had little marketing impact. None of this went over well internally — especially after the layoffs over the summer.

But that was then. Within 48 hours, interim CEO Tom Conrad laid out a clear goal to get Sonos back on the right track. I'm told these moves immediately boosted morale within the company, and employees felt the new regime was serious about doing what Sonos does best.