Barnes & Noble dumps its CEO
"Not a good fit," says the company's board of directors, dismissing Ronald D. Boire.
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Barnes & Noble's stock took a hit after its board of directors ousted CEO Ronald D. Boire yesterday. Shares in the bookseller, which also sells e-readers and e-books under its Nook brand, were down more than 10 percent in trading on Wednesday.
"The Board of Directors determined that Mr. Boire was not a good fit for the organization and that it was in the best interests of all parties for him to leave," the company said in a short statement.
Executive Chairman Leonard Riggio, who was scheduled to retire at the close of the company's annual meeting on September 14, will postpone his retirement while Barnes & Noble searches for a new CEO. Riggio along with other members of the executive management team will assume Boire's duties until a new CEO is hired.
Boire succeeded Michael Huseby, now executive chairman of Barnes & Noble Education division, and William Lynch, who left the company in 2013 after its Nook division took heavy loses.
Lynch, a veteran of the tech industry, was brought in to build out Barnes & Noble's online and digital media offerings in an effort to take on Amazon. Lynch is now the CEO of Savant Systems, a high-end smart home company that has recently ventured into the consumer market with its just-released Savant universal remote and accessories.
Boire, who was an executive at Sony and Best Buy earlier in his career, had more of a retail background, serving more recently as president and CEO of Brookstone and president and CEO of Sears Canada.
