Broxburn-based Ooni, the cooking product company and leader in the home pizza oven market, announced the appointment of former Volvo Cars and Dyson CEO Jim Rowan as chair of its board.
Rowan succeeds Paul Ross, who is stepping down after eight years in the position.
Ooni’s new board comprises Rowan as chair; founders Darina Garland and KristianTapaninaho; Ruth Chandler and Scott Maguire as non-executive directors; and CEO Karthik Iyer and CFO Andrew Brown as executive directors.
“This appointment anchors a series of senior governance updates designed to accelerate the brand’s next phase of global growth,” said Ooni.
“Jim brings decades of international leadership from some of the world’s most innovative, design-led businesses including chairing Lime.
“At Volvo Cars, as CEO and President, he scaled a premium consumer product across complex global markets; at Dyson, as COO and CEO, he helped build a brand defined by design-driven engineering. He also served as COO of BlackBerry.
“He joins Ooni’s board alongside Ruth Chandler and Scott Maguire, whose roles have been formalised as non-executive directors following their previous positions as board advisors.
“Together, they bring extensive global experience across innovation, people and commercial success, further strengthening Ooni’s leadership as the company continues to expand and evolve.
“The new board structure gives Ooni a strong foundation to pursue its long-term ambition and continued growth.
“Under Jim’s direction, the board will work closely with the CEO and management team to shape Ooni’s 10 year strategy and ensure the company continues to make the right decisions for the global community of Ooni customers.”
Ooni co-founder Darina Garland said: “Since the early days of Ooni we made thes trategic decision to have a board of advisors, to bring together world-class experience that would challenge, support and steer us into the next level.
“Today we are so excited to bring this group of global stars into Ooni. We leaned into our value of ambition and had a rigorous process to find these board advisors and our new Chair. Jim is an exceptional leader, and we’re delighted to have him as chair.
“Alongside Ruth and Scott, he brings a huge amount of experience and perspective to Ooni at a really exciting time in our journey. I would also like to take this opportunity to give heartfelt thanks to Paul Ross for his wisdom and expertise in chairing Ooni through the last 8 years of phenomenal growth.
“Having decided this is the right moment for him to hand over the reins with Ooni’s next chapter well underway, we are immensely grateful for everything he has done for the business.”
Rowan said: “What excites me about Ooni is the scale of the opportunity ahead. This is a brand that has created its own category and built extraordinary loyalty, but is still early in its growth story.
“Having spent much of my career scaling design-led consumer businesses globally, I’m delighted to be appointed as chair to lead the brand through this next chapter of growth by staying true to brand purpose and continuing to innovate world-class products.”