Throughout the decade of skratchworx and DJWORX, there have been only a few faces that have been around for the entire era. One such face (and it’s a distinctive one), is that of Serato’s CEO Sam Gribben. And it personally saddens me somewhat to announce that he’s leaving for that terribly hackneyed place of pastures new.
Because this is a pretty important milestone for Serato, they’ve issued a press release:
Serato announces the resignation of Sam Gribben, CEO.
“The year ahead is bright for Serato, the product roadmap looks amazing, and I’ve spent the last three years bringing together a strong executive team. Now feels like a great time to hand over the reigns.”
AJ Bertenshaw and Steve West co-founded Serato Audio Research in 1999. AJ will be returning to the company as CEO after serving as Chairman of the Board.
“Sam Gribben has been a huge asset to Serato for the last 10 years having joined the company when we were 5 years old and growing through to his current role as CEO. I’ve enjoyed partnering with him from the boardroom and am looking forward to the opportunity to return full time to the company. I want to thank Sam for his years of dedication and hard work to help grow Serato into the success that it is today.”
Sam will finish in his current position on March 31, 2014. “My dream was to be part of a company that made incredible DJ software, to change the way people thought about what could be possible with DJing and to make it easy for DJs to perform in new ways. I feel that I’ve accomplished what I set out to achieve.”
I’ve known Sam for 10 years now, and under his lofty leadership, I’ve sung Serato’s collective praises, been a harsh critic, and on occasion got into Sam’s face to express my abject displeasure (without the aid of a chair either). But in all that time, he’s been the perfect rudder with which to steer Serato from their initial toe-dipping in the DJ pool at NAMM 2004, through the rapid success of Scratch Live, and indeed some of the darker days where the route forward was less than clear.
But he was determined to see the realisation of 10 years of hard work come to fruition in Serato DJ. And having admirably done just that, he feels it’s time to go try something else, spend more time with his growing family, and hand the Serato rudder on to someone else.
Sam — we salute you sir. You wull be sorely mussed.