Mattel Names Google Executive Margaret Georgiadis as CEO -- Update
January 17 2017 - 9:57AM
Dow Jones News
By Paul Ziobro and Joann S. Lublin
Mattel Inc. on Tuesday said it named Google executive Margaret
Georgiadis as its next chief executive, bringing in an outsider to
replace Christopher Sinclair atop the biggest U.S. toy company.
Ms. Georgiadis, who has been president, Americas, at Alphabet
Inc.'s Google unit since 2011, has led the internet company's
commercial operations and advertising sales in the region. She is
expected to join Mattel starting Feb. 8.
Mr. Sinclair will serve as executive chairman.
Mattel's board hired executive-search firm Spencer Stuart last
summer to identify candidates to succeed Mr. Sinclair, The Wall
Street Journal reported in November. Mr. Sinclair, who took over
the top job two years ago, has been commuting to Mattel's offices
in Southern California from his primary residence in Florida.
Mr. Sinclair, 66 years old, rose to the CEO spot abruptly in
January 2015. A longtime Mattel board member, he stepped in on an
interim basis when Mattel fired his predecessor amid slumping sales
of Barbie dolls and other big brands. Mattel named him permanent
CEO three months later, passing over internal candidates.
Mr. Sinclair and his top lieutenant, Richard Dickson, have led a
turnaround at the toy maker, which has annual sales of roughly $6
billion. Mattel has reversed sales declines at top brands such as
Barbie and Fisher-Price, patched rocky relationships with retailers
and deepened a management bench with new hires to oversee branding
strategies and development of movies and shows to help sell
toys.
The company has also overhauled its corporate culture, which now
allows designers and marketers to take more risks with a new
division called Toy Box, created as an entrepreneurial arm. "Very
little of this organization looks and acts the way it did just two
years ago," Mr. Sinclair said at analyst meeting in November.
Mattel, however, is passing over Mr. Dickson for the top job.
Since returning to Mattel in May 2014, Mr. Dickson has been
promoted to president and chief operating officer, overseeing all
marketing and sales operations. He was seen by analysts as having
an inside track to the corner office.
Mr. Dickson and Ms. Georgiadis have some history together.
Ms. Georgiadis served on the board of the apparel company Jones
Group while Mr. Dickson served in a senior position at the company.
The two also worked on Mattel's modern spin on its View-Master toy,
incorporating Google's technology from a Cardboard app to create a
basic virtual reality device that Mattel released in 2015.
Before joining Google, Ms. Georgiadis served as chief operating
officer at Groupon Inc. and chief marketing officer at Discover
Financial Services. She was a partner at McKinsey & Co. for 15
years in London and Chicago. She received an economics degree from
Harvard and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Joanna Barsh, an acquaintance who worked with Ms. Georgiadis at
McKinsey, describes her as extremely smart and analytical. "She
doesn't put on airs," said Ms. Barsh, an emeritus McKinsey partner.
"She deals with you brain to brain."
Ms. Georgiadis is a director at McDonald's Corp. and Amyris
Inc., an industrial bioscience company. It is unclear whether the
new Mattel CEO will keep her two outside board seats, however. Many
boards limit chief executives to one external corporate
directorship.
She becomes the second woman to run the big toy maker. Jill
Barad relinquished command in early 2000 after a turbulent
three-year tenure marked by a disastrous acquisition and stream of
earnings disappointments.
While some brands, like Monster High, continue to struggle,
Mattel has largely met carefully laid out investor expectations.
Its sales have exceeded expectations in each of the past four
quarters, and it has been able to plug the hole from losing a
coveted license to make dolls based on Walt Disney Co.'s classic
princesses and characters from the movie "Frozen."
Mattel's rebound has corresponded with two of the strongest
years for the toy industry in decades.
Write to Paul Ziobro at Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com and Joann S. Lublin
at joann.lublin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 17, 2017 09:42 ET (14:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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