Global聽wearables brand Fitbit is undergoing a shake-up of its senior team as it continues to innovate and grow in the health and sport markets.
The company has announced that chief financial officer William Zerella will depart the company, effective June 15 with聽Ronald Kisling, currently serving as chief accounting officer,聽stepping up聽to the role of CFO.
Kisling will leverage his nearly four years with Fitbit to ensure continuity of operations and continue the business’s rocketing trajectory.
Zerella served as Fitbit鈥檚 CFO since June 2014 and during his tenure,聽guided the company to one of the largest consumer electronics IPOs in history and scaled the company globally.
Today, Fitbit’s impressive achievements have seen the company sell聽over 78 million devices and聽garner a growing, active community of users of over 25 million, is in 86 countries. It also has聽a retail footprint across 47,000 stores.
Zerella is leaving Fitbit for new pastures to become CFO of an autonomous vehicle technology start-up, using聽his substantial experience in growing businesses to guide the young company to success in an emerging arena.
鈥淥ver the past four years, Bill鈥檚 passion and dedication to growing early stage companies were key enablers of Fitbit鈥檚 transformation from a start-up to the leading global brand it is today,鈥� said Fitbit CEO and co-founderJames Park.
鈥淲e thank him for his countless contributions, including leading our successful IPO in 2015, guiding our worldwide expansion, and laying the foundation for our future success, and wish him all the best in his next endeavour.鈥�
As CFO, Kisling will lead Fitbit鈥檚 global finance organization, reporting to CEO James Park. He brings nearly 35 years of financial leadership experience to the role, having served as the CFO of multiple public and private technology companies.
Before joining Fitbit, Kisling was CFO of Nanometrics, a publicly traded semiconductor equipment company. His CV includes聽senior executive roles at PGP Corporation, Saba Software and SPL Worldgroup.
鈥淩on has long been an important member of our senior leadership team and we will continue to benefit from his significant expertise in leading sophisticated finance organizations as we position Fitbit for its next stage of growth,鈥� said Park.
鈥淲e remain confident in the long-term future of Fitbit and look forward to partnering with Ron as we execute on our plan.鈥�
The company continues to execute on its transformation strategy and is making strides adapting to the changing wearable device market.
Fitbit has experienced strong consumer demand for its new smartwatch,聽Fitbit Versa鈩�, and the company聽announced聽earlier this week that sell through in the first six weeks of availability in North America was the best of any Fitbit device in the history of the company.
Fitbit has increased confidence in its outlook that smartwatch revenue will be more than 50 per cent of sales in the second half of 2018 and in light of this聽is聽reaffirming revenue and earnings guidance for Q2 and fiscal year 2018.