Day One as CEO
As I start my first day as CEO of Zebra, I’m truly grateful for Anders’ leadership over the past 15 years. He has built an amazing team around the globe; a strong, inclusive culture; and an exceptionally successful company. I look forward to continuing the company’s 50+ year track record as a trusted advisor, technology innovator and industry leader. I also feel privileged to be able to navigate Zebra toward even greater growth and value. When we do well, our partners and customers do well. There’s strength in numbers, and collaboration is the only way to succeed. I am a strong proponent of building a strong culture, attracting and retaining the best talent, and driving innovation. That’s why I joined Zebra in the first place over seven years ago and accepted this leadership role. Some of my key focus areas are:
Customers and partners – I will continue to listen closely to our customers and partners and work to build trust through meaningful actions. We have already taken tangible steps to improve our supply chain and on-time delivery. We consult with customers and partners on research and design (R&D) decisions to ensure we develop products and solutions that will bring tremendous value to them. This will not change. In fact, customer and partner consultations underpin everything we do, for the key reason our business exists is to help our customers’ businesses grow and thrive.
Growth and execution – I will work with all our stakeholders to keep Zebra accountable to our three primary strategic objectives – expand our core and adjacent markets, drive success in our expansion markets, and strengthen our foundation for success. We have the knowledge, skills and resources to help organizations in almost every global sector navigate tumultuous markets via human-centered automation. And by that, I mean, the automated capture, aggregation, analysis and transfer of information to those charged with making decisions and taking action.
Talent and culture – We must attract, develop and retain the best people around the world if we want to achieve our other two objectives. I’m not just talking about our employees. Most of Zebra’s customers are supported by channel partners. Therefore, I will work to ensure everyone involved in the execution of Zebra’s vision of making our incredible customers successful is motivated, inspired and supported.
Zebra has some of the most extensive and well-resourced R&D programs in the tech industry. We solicit ideas from employees, partners, customers and others because our whole business model is built around using technology to help solve real-world problems. That’s why I am listening and learning from our customers and partners to understand their perspective on how we can better deliver on our Enterprise Asset Intelligence vision so we continue to provide the products and solutions they need to digitize and automate their environments and workflows.
Together, I am confident we will deliver on our strategic objectives with the same passion and commitment that has driven Zebra’s success for more than 50 years.
Bill Burns
Bill Burns has been named Chief Executive Officer, Zebra Technologies, effective March 1, 2023.
Bill has more than 30 years of experience in the technology sector and joined Zebra Technologies in 2015. In his prior role as Chief Product & Solutions Officer, he oversaw the strategy, investments, and development of Zebra’s expansive portfolio of products and solutions. During this time, Bill extended Zebra’s market share leadership across its core businesses while entering adjacent and expansion markets, delivered on the company’s Enterprise Asset Intelligence vision, and strengthened Zebra’s strategic relationships with its customers and partners.
Prior to joining Zebra, Bill served as Chief Executive Officer of Embrane, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital backed startup which was acquired by Cisco in April 2015. Prior to joining Embrane, Bill served as Chief Executive Officer of Spirent Communications, a global leader in test and measurement solutions publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. He has also held various executive and sales leadership roles at Tellabs, Inc.
Bill has a Master of Business Administration from Temple University, a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Misericordia University, and an Associate Degree in Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.
