GN Hearing and Audio Divisions to Merge, Corresponding Leadership Changes Announced

GN Store Nord has announced that it intends to consolidate its GN Hearing and GN Audio divisions into one company. With this, GN says it is “executing the next step of integration and transition into a one-company setup, simplifying the Group’s governance structure to drive further market success and shareholder value creation as a fully integrated innovation powerhouse.” In recent years, the company has reported increasing expansion of collaboration and integration across its two business divisions, benefitting from joint innovation and leveraging combined scale to drive growth and profitability.

GN also announced corresponding leadership changes that will result in one Board, one Group CEO, and one Group CFO. Current GN Audio Managing Director Peter Karlstromer will become the new Group CEO, and along with Group CFO Søren Jelert will lead the executive leadership team that will design the new organizational structure of GN.

Gitte Aabo announced on LinkedIn that she will step down from her executive roles as CEO of GN Store Nord and GN Hearing as she wishes to devote herself to a full-time board career. The Danish business website MedWatch also reports that Scott Davis, the current president of GN Hearing North America, will assume an executive leadership position for the global hearing aid business.

These changes will take effect on October 1, 2023. Aabo has committed to stay on through the remainder of 2023 to ensure a seamless transition.

“The time has come to further align into one company,” said Chair of the Board Jukka Pertola in a press statement. “The changes we are making will simplify our governance and strengthen the way we operate. We have significant opportunities ahead of us and I am pleased that Peter Karlstromer has accepted the role as Group CEO to lead the business as we move into the future. On behalf of the Board, I would also like to express our gratitude for the turnaround of GN Hearing that Gitte has successfully led over the past four years. Following this, we respect her decision to now fully focus on her board career as she leaves our hearing business in great shape. I wish her all the best for her future.”

The GN Hearing division has served as the group for hearing aid manufacturers and distributors ReSound, Beltone, Interton, and Audigy. The GN Audio division has been the home of headset and consumer audio products manufacturers Jabra, Steelseries, Blueparrott, and military communications supplier FalCom. It could be argued that before and during the pandemic, GN Audio became the group’s key breadwinner and growth vehicle as headset and audio device demand surged with the need for at-home audio devices and teleconferencing equipment. This year, it has been GN Hearing's turn to shine, mainly on the success of its OMNIA hearing aid family.

“I am proud to take on the role as Group CEO,” says Karlstromer. “We are in strong positions across our company, and I am excited to lead a customer-focused organization that brings innovation to our customers and partners. I believe that moving to “One GN” will make us a better workplace with benefits to all the valued employees we have today and will attract in the future. Our simplified governance will also allow us to further benefit from the scale and strengths we have across our company and accelerate our path to success and superior shareholder value creation.”

The consolidation of the two divisions may also be a reminder of the collision between the hearing aid and consumer electronics industries, with the progressive evolution of smart earbuds, health and fitness monitoring hearing aids, hearables, and over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. For example, Jabra Enhance Plus might be seen as the first true collaboration between hearing aid and consumer audio developers, resulting in a dedicated OTC hearing aid instead of the re-engineering of an existing hearing aid for self-fitting.

Jabra's name recognition should also help GN in the evolving hearing aid market where branding has become more important, with competitors that now include Sony (WSA), Bose (Lexie), Sennheiser (Sonova), and Philips (Demant). The Jabra Enhance brand has made successful inroads into Costco and mass merchandisers like Best Buy and Amazon, while Jabra Enhance Select (formerly Lively) has been one of the more successful online distributors of OTC hearing aids.

Last year, GN Audio added e-gaming giant SteelSeries to the group with the closing of a $1.2 billion purchase, but then suffered economic headwinds that left the company with a worrisome debt load. This caused some market analysts earlier this year to speculate that GN was at a crossroads that might include a potential merger with rival Demant or some other interested buyer. Since then, the company has appeared to resolve the problem through strong sales and the issuance of new shares.