23-Year HP Veteran Brings Proven Leadership in Hardware and Software Solution Development
Plantronics (NYSE: PLT) today announced that Mike Perkins has joined the
company as vice president of Product Development and Technology,
responsible for leading the company’s global product development and
engineering teams and programs.
“Mike will play an instrumental role in bringing innovation to
Plantronics’ product portfolio and aligning it with key growth
opportunities, including Unified Communications in the enterprise and
mobile and audio convergence for consumers,” said Ken Kannappan,
president and CEO of Plantronics. “His expertise in developing
differentiated solutions that integrate hardware and software will be
most valuable as the role of digital audio expands for all audiences.”
Mr. Perkins spent 23 years at HP. He was most recently the general
manager and vice president of HP’s Voodoo Business Unit, a luxury brand
including Envy notebooks and Omen desktops, and the Blackbird family of
PC gaming products. In this role, Mr. Perkins managed a global team and
had end-to-end responsibility for product development, manufacturing,
marcom, sales, and support. Prior to this position, Mr. Perkins was the
vice president of Research and Development for HP’s Global Consumer PC
Business Unit, responsible for all development of the HP Pavilion and
Compaq Presario consumer desktop PCs, including the HP Touchsmart. Mr.
Perkins held several other research and development titles at HP and
managed the “integration office” that coordinated the HP-Compaq merger
cost savings activities for the combined PC-client business.
Mr. Perkins also spent three years as senior vice president of Research
and Development at LeapFrog Enterprises, an educational electronic toy
company known for developing innovative consumer products. At LeapFrog,
Mr. Perkins was responsible for leading global software and hardware
teams towards developing, in parallel, a wide variety and large number
of products across multiple price points and target audiences.
“Mike’s rich background of consumer and business product innovation
combined with his skill in navigating competitive time-to-market and
cost pressures matches well to our business needs,” added Kannappan.
Mr. Perkins holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Applied Mechanics and
Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego.
About Plantronics
In 1969, a Plantronics headset carried the historic first words from the
moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Since
then, Plantronics has become the headset of choice for mission-critical
applications such as air traffic control, 911 dispatch and the New York
Stock Exchange. Today, this history of innovation is the basis for every
audio product we build for the office, contact center, personal mobile,
entertainment and residential markets. The Plantronics family of brands
includes Plantronics, Altec Lansing and Clarity. For more information,
go to www.plantronics.com or
call (800) 544-4660.
Altec Lansing, Clarity, Plantronics, and Sound Innovation are trademarks
or registered trademarks of Plantronics, Inc. All other trademarks are
the property of the respective owners.
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