Dirac Names New CEO as Co-Founder Mathias Johansson Departs for Harman

Dirac has named Anders Storm, an industry veteran with experience in software, engineering, and semiconductors, as its new CEO. Storm takes over from Peter Friedrichsen, who has been at the company’s helm since 2021, when Dirac’s co-founder, Mathias Johansson, stepped down from the CEO position to focus exclusively on research and development. At the same time that Dirac announced its new chief executive, Mathias Johansson announced that he is leaving Dirac to lead Harman International’s Signal Processing & Applied Intelligence Lab. Dr. Johansson founded Dirac together with other scientists from Uppsala University in 2001. He served as CEO from 2009 to 2021, Chief Product Officer from 2021 to 2023, and Chief Technology Officer from 2023 until his recent departure. (See our article Dirac Room Correction Interview With Mathias Johansson.) He announced the move from Dirac to Harman via a post on LinkedIN.

A new exciting chapter begins for me today,” said Dr. Johansson in the post. “Having devoted more than 23 years to the company I co-founded in 2001, I have decided to make my next move and spread my wings outside of Dirac. I am excited to share that on September 16 (2024), I will begin leading Harman International’s Signal Processing & Applied Intelligence Lab.

— Dr. Mathias Johansson, Via LinkedIN

There seems to be no bad blood among any of the parties involved. On a corporate level, Harman has used Dirac technologies in many of its best products over the years, including the new Arcam SA35 and SA45 streaming amps, which were shown at CEDIA 2024. These are among the first stereo integrated amps to incorporate Dirac Live Bass Control. On a more personal level, Mathias Johansson has connections with some key players at Harman, including Armin Prommersberger, Chief Technology Officer at Harman International. Prommersberger previously worked under Johansson as Dirac’s Chief Technology Officer. Now, in his own LinkedIN post, Prommersberger says that Johansson will help Harman “offer the most compelling user experiences everywhere” across its vast product portfolios in the Consumer Electronics, Professional, and Automotive industries. “Intelligent, context aware devices,” will be key to that success, according to Prommersberger, who adds that “cutting edge signal processing techniques are the underlying principle to build on” in order to achieve these goals. Harman has been making other moves to develop its technology strategy, including the recent hiring of Klaus Hartung. In the spring of 2024, Prommersberger appointed Dr. Hartung to the role of Vice President of Harman’s Intelligent Audio Lab. Hartung’s previous experience includes more than a decade at Sonos, where he served as Senior Director of Embedded Hardware and Software Development.

I am thrilled to announce that Dr. Mathias Johansson will join our team of technologists as the new Vice President of Digital Signal Processing and Applied Intelligence Lab at Harman International, effective 16th of September. Mathias’s extensive experience and visionary leadership in digital signal processing and human machine interaction are ideally suited to our future technology direction, representing the essence of the tech culture we are building: an entrepreneurial mindset combined with extraordinary technical skills and a strong focus on collaboration.

— Armin Prommersberger, Chief Technology Officer at Harman International

Founding a company is like having a baby. It’s a 24/7 commitment that’s always on your mind, day and night. I am proud of everything Dirac has achieved over the last 23 years, and I remain as optimistic and confident about Dirac’s future today as ever before. All the arrows are now pointing in the right direction for the company. To me, this means it is time to let this baby fly without me. Children grow up, and at some point they need to tackle the world on their own, even if it’s painful to let go. To this end, I will remain an advisor to Dirac’s CEO for some time. My belief is that in a world of commoditization, a company can only create a sustainable edge by relentlessly pursuing state-of-the-art science and technology. Amazing products result from exceptional technology rooted in real customer needs – and that’s what I hope to develop together with the great team at Harman. I look forward to joining an incredibly talented team at Harman, while knowing that Dirac’s best and brightest days remain ahead. Upwards and onwards!

— Dr. Mathias Johansson

Meanwhile back at Dirac, the appointment of Anders Storm as Chief Executive Officer comes during a time of record-breaking growth for the company, according to Dirac Chairman Johan Sedihn. This growth is largely due to commercial partnerships with major industry players like Harman, which has an enormous presence in both the automotive and home audio markets. From 2022 to 2023, Dirac’s net sales reportedly increased by 59 percent, driven primarily by growing sales in the automotive channel, which grew by a massive 62 percent in 2023, and again by 52 percent so far in 2024. Dirac’s Home Audio consumer sales also grew significantly during the same period, currently up 35 percent in the first half of 2024. These impressive figures should come as no surprise to audio enthusiasts. Dirac was once available only in high-end, esoteric gear. Now there is an abundance of familiar, trusted brands offering Dirac in their products, including JBL, Arcam, Klipsch, NAD, Bluesound, Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, and Pioneer.

What may be less obvious to Audioholics readers is that Dirac has also grown significantly through partnerships with leading semiconductor companies like NXP, Analog Devices, and BES, to “port their digital audio solutions onto chips, which enables an end-to-end ecosystem for OEMs to adopt Dirac at an even larger scale,” according to a press release from Dirac. The company’s new CEO, Anders Storm, comes to Dirac from Sivers Semiconductors AB (STO: Sive), an “internationally recognized

semiconductor company” with a focus on wireless (5G, SATCOM) photonics, where he first served as COO before becoming CEO in 2016. Previously he served as Vice President of Engineering and Operations at Birdstep Technology, and Head of Program Management Development, Smartphones, at Sony Ericsson.

Since its founding in 2001, Dirac has advanced the frontiers of digital audio in every market and application where sound matters. As such, they have justly earned the reputation of being the world’s most innovative audio company. I am very excited to join this team of sound pioneers and I look forward to applying my talents and experience. Dirac is in a unique position and has endless possibilities in all parts of the ecosystem, which will help the company to grow faster in more categories, more channels, and more markets around the world. Dirac’s business model offers digital distribution with impressively high gross margins, which is ideal for solid growth and long-term profitability.

— Anders Storm, New CEO of Dirac

We are very excited to have Anders join Dirac at this critical moment in the company’s 20-year history. His deep experience in software, semiconductors, and hardware-software engineering, coupled with his C-level leadership record, aligns perfectly with the current and future direction of our company. He has what we need to leverage our current core competencies in new market opportunities and identify the new technologies that will accelerate our growth in the future. Anders’s deep background in software development, coupled with his more recent semiconductor industry experience, makes him the ideal CEO to chart our future success in the intersection of audio signal processing and semiconductor chips. These two traditionally distinct industries are merging in ways that will redefine what can be done with audio – and Anders is equipped to help us leverage this integration for the betterment of our customers worldwide.

— Johan Sedihn, Dirac Chairman

As fans of both Dirac and Harman, we’re glad to see that Dirac appears to be in good hands, and we’re curious to see what Mathias Johansson accomplishes at Harman. Will his expertise be put to work largely in Harman’s profitable automotive business, or will Harman develop its own competitive, commercialized room correction system based on the Sound Field Management techniques developed at Harman under Dr. Floyd Toole? Will Harman continue its buying spree and eventually acquire Dirac, just as it recently bought Flux Software Engineering and Roon? Share your thoughts in the related forum thread below.