Rishi, who sold Blue Yonder to Panasonic, stepping down as CEO

Girish Rishi is stepping down as CEO of supply chain software-as-a-service company Blue Yonder, just a few months after it was sold to Panasonic.

Rishi will be replaced on an interim basis by Mark Morgan, currently Blue Yonder’s executive vice president of Worldwide Commercial Business.

In response to questions from FreightWaves, a spokeswoman for Blue Yonder said Rishi’s departure was not planned as part of the sale to Panasonic. 

After Rishi joined Blue Yonder as CEO in 2017, his time there “was driven by getting the company to respond to secular drivers from cloud to machine learning, from strategic partnerships to the edge, a cultural lift and a management system that scales on a strong financial footing,” the spokeswoman said. “He believes he has accomplished this.”

Blue Yonder recently announced its full-year earnings for what it said was a record-breaking 2021. Its annualized recurring revenue for the fourth quarter — an important metric for growing SaaS companies, though Blue Yonder had already found its suitor in Panasonic — was $475 million, up 39% from the corresponding quarter a year earlier. SaaS revenue in the fourth quarter was $108 million, up 44%. Subscription revenue was 69% of total revenue in the fourth quarter and for all of 2021.

In the earnings release, Blue Yonder said total annual revenue was more than $1.1 billion, and its SaaS backlog was in excess of $1 billion. 

When Panasonic acquired Blue Yonder, the price of the purchase was not revealed. But Panasonic’s acquisition at the time was for it to buy the 80% of the company it did not already own. When the acquisition of that stake was completed, Panasonic put the value of the company at $8.5 billion.

“Business has never been healthier for Blue Yonder,” Rishi said in the statement. “Supply chain optimization is at the forefront of everybody’s boardroom conversation around the world, and Blue Yonder plays a critical role as the leading end-to-end solution provider.”

He said the company has 5,500 associates.

Morgan has been with Blue Yonder for 23 years in what was described as “a variety of strategic leadership positions” in the U.S. and abroad.

“I have seen Blue Yonder enable companies to deliver the world’s essential goods such as food, water and medicine, more quickly and efficiently,” Morgan said in the statement.

Blue Yonder is part of Panasonic’s Connected Solutions Co. The acquisition closed in September.

When the acquisition was closed, Panasonic said Blue Yonder’s capabilities could be “unified” with Panasonic’s sensing technologies and edge devices. Connected Solutions was established in 2017 and uses AI and Internet of Things solutions for a list of industries: avionics, manufacturing, entertainment, retail, logistics and public services.

More articles by John Kingston

Jobs report: Lots of them but more in warehousing than in trucking

Saia stepping up its cadence of adding terminals

Highly profitable Heartland draws concern about its revenue from Barclays

Source: https://www.freightwaves.com/news
Editor: John Kingston