iRobot has announced the successor to longtime CEO, Colin Angle. Gary Cohen, who previous held chief executive role at Timex and Qualitor Automotive, will be heading up the company, marking a major shift from his predecessor, Angle, a cofounder of the company who held the role from 1997 until January of this year.
Cohen joins iRobot at a tumultuous time. At the beginning of 2024, after regulators quashed Amazon’s planned acquisition, the Roomba-maker laid off nearly a third of its headcount.
In 2002, iRobot effectively birthed the robotic vacuum, launching what is, to date, the only mainstream home robot category. In the intervening two decades, however, the company has struggled to diversify its portfolio beyond the Roomba – though certainly not for lack of trying. The competition, meanwhile, has since grown far stiffer, with many players offering lower price alternatives…
