The Brainchip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN) share price is down more than 9% after an announcement about the CEO.
What’s happening to the Brainchip share price?
Brainchip announced this morning that it has mutually agreed with Louis DiNardo that his role as managing director and CEO of Brainchip has terminated without cause, effective immediately.
Mr DiNardo has served as managing director and CEO of the company since 28 September 2016 and is leaving the company to pursue other interests.
Who is going to be the new Brainchip CEO?
The Brainchip board has appointed Peter Van der Made, the current chief technology officer (CTO), co-founder of Brainchip and executive director, as the interim CEO while a search is completed for a new CEO.
Other members of the Brainchip leadership team will support Mr van der Made in his role.
Mr van der Made’s remuneration will remain the same during his tenure as interim CEO. Mr van der Made becomes the CEO immediately, with Mr DiNardo staying with the business in a part time role to assist the transition for a period of 12 months. He will receive US$100,000 over a period of 12 months for this and a severance payout of US$300,000 over the next 12 months.
Management comments
The current non-executive Chairman of Brainchip, Emmanuel Hernandez, said:
“On behalf of the board and the employees of Brainchip, we thank Lou for his years and service to Brainchip and for taking us from concept to silicon. We wish him the best in his future endeavours.”
Mr van der Made said: “I also want to thank Lou for leading us to this point. I am honoured to lead our team during this interim period, while the board commences an expeditious search for our next seasoned CEO, to further advance the commercialisation of our Akida technology and strategy for the future.”
Is this a good time to jump on the Brainchip share price?
Short term negative movements can be an opportunistic time to buy shares of a business you like. I’m just not sure about Brainchip’s future. The concept certainly sounds interesting – but I don’t have the expertise to know how good it is/could be and how much money it can make in the future. So I’m happy to leave the investor to others and look at different ASX growth shares.