TiVo COO joins Amazon as VP of Alexa Voice Services

Pete Thompson

TiVo’s chief operating officer, Pete Thompson, has left the company to join Amazon as vice-president of Alexa Voice Services.

Thompson’s departure, effective October 6, was confirmed in an 8K form TiVo filed last week with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which said Thompson had left to “pursue an external employment opportunity with a larger company”.

Thompson has since confirmed his new Sunnyvale, California-based post at Amazon via an update to his LinkedIn profile, joining the team responsible for voice-controlled products and services.

TiVo said that outgoing CEO and president, Tom Carson, will assume the responsibilities previously held by Thompson while it continues to search for a new chief executive.

Carson announced in May that he planned to retire, ending an 11-year career at TiVo and its predecessor companies – Rovi and Gemstar.

In the 8K filing TiVo said that the board of directors was pleased with ” both the high level of interest and the quality of the candidates” for the chief exec  role, and that it “expects to conclude the process and announce a new CEO shortly”.

Thompson leaves TiVo after a little over a year at the company. He was appointed at the end of August 2016 to oversee the product integration of the combined Rovi-TiVo, after Rovi agreed to buy TiVo for roughly US$1.1 billion (€961 million) in April 2016.

Thompson was previously senior vice president of Ericsson’s Mediaroom Business Group before  leaving the company in 2015. Earlier in his career he held a number of senior roles at Microsoft.

Carson became president and CEO of Rovi in December 2011 and retained the role after Rovi completed its acquisition of TiVo in September 2016 and adopted the TiVo brand.