Apple veteran Saori Casey to join Sonos as finance chief

Apple Inc. veteran Saori Casey will become chief financial officer at the smart speaker company Sonos Inc., marking another high-profile defection for the iPhone maker.

Casey will take the job on Jan. 22, replacing current CFO Eddie Lazarus, who will move to the new role of chief strategy officer while remaining chief legal officer, Sonos said in a statement Tuesday. She left Apple last month.

Casey spent more than a dozen years at Apple, where she served as vice president of finance. She has become a top deputy to CFO Luca Maestri, overseeing financial planning, forecasting and investor relations. Casey also worked for 15 years at Cisco Systems Inc., handling finance roles during a period of explosive growth for the networking company.

“The depth and breadth of her experience at world-class companies like Apple and Cisco make her perfectly suited to build on our momentum and seize the opportunity ahead,” Sonos Chief Executive Officer Patrick Spence said in the statement.

She joins Sonos during an ambitious stretch for the company. After a slowdown in its hallmark category — smart audio equipment — the company is pushing into headphones and other new markets, such as set-top boxes and video services.

For Apple, the move represents the loss of another influential executive. Steve Hotelling — a vice president in charge of hardware technologies like Touch ID, Face ID and displays — recently retired. And Tang Tan, vice president of product design, is leaving in February. Bloomberg