Hugo Barra Joins Sonos Board of Directors

Sonos announced today that former Google executive Hugo Barra has joined the company’s Board of Directors. He replaces Mike Volpi, a venture capitalist, on the Sonos board

“Hugo is a world-class technologist with senior executive experience at several of the most important and successful consumer tech companies,” Sonos board chair Julius Genachowski said. “He has a proven ability to turn cutting-edge innovation into great products – a great fit for Sonos. With his deep expertise, including in AI, we’re excited to have him on the Board, engaging with the leadership team and adding value.”

Hugo Barra was a fixture at Google Android events between 2010 and 2013, and I associate him clearly with the Nexus 7 tablets. After Google, he joined Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi. He left that company in 2017, joining Facebook to lead its Oculus VR division, before moving on to a health startup called Detect in 2021. He’s still affiliated with Detect today, but he also co-founded and leads product development at /dev/agents, an AI agent software company.

It’s not clear what led to Volpi’s departure or Barra’s appointment, but Sonos is obviously weathering a difficult period at the moment and can use all the industry expertise it can get. Maybe Barra can patch up Sonos’s broken relationship with Google.