HTC Chairwoman to Take Some Duties From CEO
A workload shift at HTC will increase the duties of co-founder and chairwoman Cher Wang as the company focuses on regaining market share.
Wang will take on operational duties for the Taiwanese smartphone maker, and CEO Peter Chou will lessen his load at the company to focus on innovation, according to the Financial Times.
In what is being touted as a temporary move, Wang will expand her day-to-day presence from two to six days a week to work on sales, marketing and supplier relationships, according to the FT. Chou, who has served as the company’s CEO for nearly a decade, will concentrate on product development.
“I have become very focused in the past couple of months. Before that I was too busy,” Chou told the FT. “I took on too many things. I need to be more focused on innovation and [the] product portfolio.”
Related: HTC's Cher Wang on Innovation and the 'It' Product
It’s been a rocky period for the company. In October, the smartphone and tablet maker reported a bigger than expected quarterly loss. It was the first quarterly loss for the company since going public. Some wondered if Chou would stick around but, in June, he reportedly said he had no plans to leave HTC.
Earlier this year, the company introduced the HTC One, a smartphone expected to be a competitor to Apple and Samsung mobile devices, but failed to make a huge dent in the market.
Last year, Wang spoke to Entrepreneur.com about staying ahead of trends. “We must always keep an eye on our environment, to keep track of what changes are happening in technology, in infrastructure, in markets, in how people across the world are living their lives, working and communicating. We need to anticipate these trends and innovate to meet them. Within HTC, hundreds of ideas are tested and discarded to find those rare ideas that define the HTC user experience,” she said.
