Movidius appoints semiconductor executive Gary Johnson to board

Johnson was previously CEO for PortalPlayer, and has recently been involved as a Director at Air Semiconductor and ITSUN Ltd. Johnson has been a NASDAQ-listed CEO twice across his career. Having overseen the growth and/or flotation of several businesses including S3 and PortalPlayer, (floated in November of 2004 and sold to NVIDIA in 2007 for $360M), Johnson has built a reputation for backing and managing successful enterprises. Under his tenure at S3 Inc. he built the highly successful Trio product family, bringing for the first time integrated video and graphics playback to the consumer PC market. At PortalPlayer the Applications Processors (AP) that were developed achieved notable success in many generations of mobile devices including Apple iPods, and SONY and Samsung MP3 players among many others. This led the way to highly innovative products incorporating High-Definition (HD) video capability for the then emerging multimedia mobile phone market.

Johnson’s expertise in strategic planning and execution, financing and negotiation, together with his enthusiasm for mobile technologies, make him a strong addition to a company that already has significant momentum behind it. Movidius gained strong investor backing, securing over $14 million of Series A funding in October 2008. The January 2009 launch and demonstrations of its premier mobile video processor, the MA1110, at Mobile World Congress 2009 were met with uniformly positive responses. Mobile social networking is seen to be the ‘next big thing’ in the mobile space and the ability of Movidius’ technology to deliver mobile video editing is key to realising a complete user experience.

“We’re really excited to have someone of Gary’s calibre joining the team,” said Sean Mitchell, CEO of Movidius. “Gary’s previous successful track record and strong industry relationships make him a very significant addition to our board. He brings substantial experience to the table, and will play a key role in guiding Movidius’ strategic direction in the future and in accelerating our market engagements.”