Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
This week, Scala employees, partners and customers are starting to be told that CEO Tom Nix and Scala have parted ways.
Tom Nix at the 2011 Scala Conference
Following on from the quiet dismissal of Joseph Souren, Vice President & General Manager – EMEA who only joined in June 2015, the recent departure of Dan McAllister, Vice President and General Manager – Americas who joined in June 2013 and rumours that they are also without a CFO, this leaves the global digital signage software company somewhat bereft of seniority at the top of the organisation.
All round good guys; Peter Cherna (an employee since 1993 and Chief Product Officer since November 2014) and Harry Horn who joined as Marketing Manager EMEA in March 2010 but who is now Vice President Marketing Global are two of the only remaining senior executive team that we can think of.
Tom Nix joined Scala as VP American Operations in August 2010 and was quickly promoted to CEO in October 2011 following the retirement of long-term man in charge Gerard Bucas.
After a rocky start, Tom won the first few rounds of corporate in-fighting and managed to dispense of much of the company’s dead wood, commenced a battle with their own resellers about doing business direct – a battle he ultimately lost BUT to his credit, when he knew he was not going to win, he quickly mended fences with said partners and business continued on as normal.
His latter attempts to focus the business more on retail, resulted in what now looks like, too many expensive North American hires – none of whom lasted with the company for any length of time.
Overall we actually think that Tom did a pretty good job. Alas, at the end of the day there was no way he could make Scala the profitable company the Norwegian board thought it should be.
The fact that the board are likely unrealistic in what they think Scala’s current business model can bring them in terms of revenue counts for little. This is a business remember where they are torn between an old ‘partner’ model and a need to drive more revenue from end users. Add into the mix their legacy software and cost base and it’s a very, very difficult transition to make – one in fact that could be nigh on impossible.
There is no news yet as who will take charge but we hear that it’s likely an interim CEO will be appointed short term. With 60% of Scala’s business now being done in Europe we’d fully expect them to recruit and hire locally on the European continent.
June 7th, 2016 at 09:45 @448
A new age for Scala!
June 8th, 2016 at 11:32 @522
Hi Adrian,
Many thanks for letting us know. Unsurprisingly, we have heard nothing from Scala.
Barry
June 8th, 2016 at 13:16 @594
Well they ONLY had 6 months to plan this so what do you expect from them?
June 8th, 2016 at 17:57 @789
Is interesting to characterize that Mr. Nix got rid of dead wood after joining Scala. He actually got rid of very essential and key people. Some of them were helping partners and their clients use the product wisely and effectively, and building the case for re-certification so Scala 5 use would be exceptional by all Partners and their clients. Plans to make the training and creating of better resources for a Knowledge Base and other training initiatives that would have added value to Partners were scrapped and abandoned. It has been shocking to see many displays in a Metropolitan area like NYC not use Scala, as it is a great product with ample opportunities to exploit its capabilities out-of-the-box.
Perhaps the “dead wood” that Mr. Nix got rid off should be brought back and correct any deviations the company has taken for the past 6 years. I hope the board in Oslo learns from the post-mortem they conduct about the Nix tenure.
July 20th, 2016 at 18:55 @829
Wishing Scala the very best. Second to their reseller channel, Scala employees are dedicated to the product and the channel they serve.