Nasdaq-traded Auddia Inc. has named the successor to Michael Lawless as Chief Executive Officer. The change comes as Lawless is retiring after 13 years of leading the company and its predecessor, Clip Interactive.
Taking the CEO role at Auddia is Jeff Thramann, Auddia’s chairman. In his new role as chief executive, Thramann will oversee the proposed restructuring of the company as directed by the special committee. If a restructuring is consummated, Thramann will serve as CEO of the holding company and Auddia will become a fully owned subsidiary.
It is expected that a new Auddia CEO will be named around that time.
At the same time, Auddia has added three new independent board members “with experience in AI infrastructure and the evaluation of entrepreneurial opportunities” — Nick Balletta, Emmanuel de Boucaud, and Josh Sroge.
They are replacing existing independent board members Steve Deitsch, Tim Hanlon, and Tom Birch.
Additionally, the new board has formed a special committee of independent members “to evaluate a transformative business combination opportunity to restructure into an AI native holding company that delivers enhanced AI capabilities to its portfolio companies.”
Auddia explains that the mission of the holding company to be evaluated by the special committee “will be to deliver enhanced AI capabilities to portfolio companies through a proprietary AI data center solution and a centralized AI leadership and development team. The AI data center offering is expected to significantly lower the cost of training AI models and running inference on these models for the holding company’s portfolio companies.”
The AI leadership team will work with portfolio companies to institute “an AI first culture with respect to leveraging AI to improve operational efficiencies, while the centralized AI development team will aim to deliver world class data analytics and machine learning expertise to portfolio companies. By centralizing AI talent at the holding company level, management believes portfolio companies will have access to a higher level of talent than they can secure individually. It is also expected that the cross pollination achieved by allocating central AI resources across multiple portfolio companies will result in greater innovation and superior AI model development.”
The announced leadership changes and proposed restructuring are the result of a comprehensive analysis of strategic alternatives over the past nine months led by Thramann and the board in partnership with the management team and outside consultants, Auddia says. The process has resulted in an updated plan for the faidr app as well as an opportunity to evaluate a business combination that is expected to serve as the catalyst supporting the Company’s proposed restructuring.
However, Auddia says there can be no assurances that the special committee will recommend that the company proceed with the restructuring or any other alternative strategic transaction, or that if the special committee does recommend an alternative strategic transaction, that it will be consummated as described herein or at all.
In pre-market trading on Wednesday, Auddia shares were priced at $4.63.
