When you joined Logitech in late 2023, the company was navigating a post-pandemic market correction after years of exceptional demand growth. What was the most consequential strategic decision you made in your first year?
You are right that the company had experienced six or seven consecutive quarters of decline and was not in a good place. My predecessor had departed six months prior, leaving a temporary CEO in place, which is always difficult. Coming in, it was therefore critical to quickly set a new vision and strategy for growth.
We began building it in my first week and had it ready a couple of months later. Within that, some choices started working right away and will serve us well for years to come. Let me give you two examples.
The first was “China for China”. Our business in China was particularly soft at the time. We were losing significant market share, so we had to move quickly to put a team in place in China that could design and innovate for China at China speed. That has really helped our China business. It has now grown double digits for five or six consecutive quarters, and we reallocated substantial resources to make that happen.
The second was doubling down on B2B. Logitech is traditionally a consumer company, you buy us at Media Markt or on Amazon, and we are very good at that. But the B2B channel is a significant opportunity. We invested resources accordingly, and that is also delivering strong results.
With that new strategy, we quickly returned to growth. We reported our fiscal year 2026 results last Tuesday, and it was a strong year: 6% dollar growth, 4% constant currency growth, and substantial profit growth. We are in a very good position.
You were a multiple national springboard diving champion in the Netherlands. What is the most useful thing competitive sport taught you about leadership?
There are so many things. From diving, a couple stand out. Springboard diving is a scary sport. You are 10 metres high in the air and you need to do many flips and twists. So I would say: not being afraid of taking a risk.
People often ask me whether I am afraid to get up in front of a crowd or make hard decisions in business. I always think back to standing on the 10-metre platform and having to do a back two-and-a-half twister. That is scary. And that makes almost anything in life and business a little less scary.
Then there are all the ones you know from any sport: discipline, commitment, not giving up when you lose. Because you are going to lose a few times in life, and it is not always going to be easy. I think sport is a really great foundation for business.
Logitech sits between users and platforms like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, each of which is building its own AI layer, like Apple Intelligence, Copilot, Gemini. As those ecosystems pull more AI functionality into the operating system itself, where is the durable space for an independent peripherals company?
The special thing about Logitech is that we work with all of them and they all want to work with us. What they say in Silicon Valley is: hardware is hard. And it is. These companies, with the exception of Apple, are essentially software and AI companies. Making products where that software and AI is deeply integrated, but that are physical — cameras, mice, keyboards, headsets — is a different discipline entirely. You need factories. You need to take products to market across many countries, with salespeople and marketing. That is a different skill and specialty.
Logitech, over its 45-year existence, has really excelled at what we call design-led, software-enabled hardware and doing that in partnership with all the major players, both in the US and in China.
Around 40 percent of Logitech’s revenue now comes from B2B, and you have said B2B is outgrowing B2C quarter after quarter. As Cisco, HP-Poly, and a new wave of Yealink and Huawei products move into the AI-powered meeting room, where do you see Logitech’s most defensible moat?
I summarize it as smarter, simpler, more secure, and more sustainable. That is what we strive for, particularly in video conferencing, where we are the global market leader ahead of those companies. But success is never final, so you have got to stay on your toes.
Smarter is all about AI-enabled new products. A great example: we are launching new Rally AI video conferencing cameras this summer. They act like Steven Spielberg in the room. They produce your meeting. It does not really matter where you are. They know who is speaking. They know when someone opens a bottle of Coke that they should not focus on that person. They frame the shot smartly and remove people who do not belong in the meeting. The AI takes in real-world input and uses it to create a great experience on screen for people who are not in the room.
Simpler is also very important. When you use a video conferencing room, you just want to walk in and have it work. The worst thing is having to call IT because nothing works and there is no cable. We pride ourselves on designing products that are simple to use. You almost do not want to know they are there.
The third is more secure. Very important, especially with camera technology. This is where Swissness shines through. Swiss and security are near and dear to our hearts.
And finally, more sustainable. We are proud that 78% of our products are made with recycled plastic. That is absolutely unique. Our products use less energy in video conferencing than those of our competitors. We use low-carbon PCBs and low-carbon aluminium. So, the total footprint of a company that installs our video conferencing products is going to be lower than with anyone else. We believe that is a real competitive advantage.
On the consumer side, where upgrade cycles are lengthening and budgets are tightening, what does Logitech’s strategy look like for the next three years?
Why we get up every morning, what we call our mission, is extending human potential in work and play. That is particularly important now in the age of AI. We want to make humans a little better.
What does that mean in practice? At work, we want to give you tools that make you faster and more accurate. A product like the MX Master 4, our latest mouse, makes you significantly faster whether you are a software engineer or someone who spends their day in Excel. It is about how we make people more productive.
In gaming, it is about helping you perform better. A huge product we launched in February is the Super-Strike mouse. What Nike and Adidas are to running, we are to competitive gaming. Competitive gaming is enormous, and if you want to win, you need the best gear. The Super-Strike was developed with professional gamers and is significantly faster. If you are playing League of Legends or Valorant, you want this mouse. We sold out almost immediately after we started shipping and are desperately trying to make more. It is like those tech swimsuits of 15 years ago. It really makes a giant difference.
So that is what we are focused on: helping people be more productive, helping people perform better, and in video conferencing, helping them connect better and have great meetings.
A survey from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that more than 80 percent of company executives have so far seen no productivity gains from AI. What should students graduating in 2026 be building that AI cannot replace?
There are two things I would say. The first is that at Logitech, we are seeing productivity benefits from AI. If you look at our results printed on Tuesday, our OpEx as a percent of sales was down 170 basis points last year. That is a very significant productivity increase, and AI has certainly contributed. That said, we are using AI to grow faster, not to reduce headcount. We have slightly more people this year than last year. With AI, they can simply grow faster. That is the plan.
The second thing I would say to any young person is this: we desperately need you. All this talk about there being no jobs for new graduates is baloney. We need AI-native people. Engineers, finance professionals, salespeople who are AI-native and know how to extend themselves with AI. I need humans who are clever with AI. We see this at Logitech across engineering, finance, marketing and sales: our newest graduates are more productive than colleagues who are not AI-native. So do not despair. There is absolutely room for you, because you are AI-native.
