Magic Leap Names Peggy Johnson as CEO

Yesterday, AR startup Magic Leap named veteran tech exec Peggy Johnson as its new CEO. Founder Rony Abovitz said he would resign as CEO in May; Johnson will step into his shoes on August 1.

Johnson’s resume:

• She headed business development at Microsoft, where she reported to CEO Satya Nadella and helped launch a corporate venture arm.
• Johnson also had a 24-year stint at Qualcomm and, before that, worked at GE’s Military Electronics Division.

The next act

Johnson told the NYT she was drawn to Magic Leap’s spatial technology, which is exciting, expensive—and enormously difficult to commercialize: Magic Leap has raised over $3 billion from investors but struggled to sell consumer AR headsets.

Now, Magic Leap is pivoting to enterprise solutions.

Johnson could tap her B2B experience to right the ship and sail it toward the land of synergies and circling back...but Magic Leap isn’t in uncontested waters. Microsoft, Johnson’s last company, continues to upgrade its enterprise-focused HoloLens AR product line.