Rovi appoints chief revenue officer

Rovi has appointed former Alcatel-Lucent executive Dave Longaker to the newly created role of chief revenue officer. 

Longaker will be responsible for driving Rovi’s global revenue across its discovery, monetisation and intellectual property product lines.

Based at Rovi’s Santa Clara, California corporate headquarters, Longaker will report directly to Rovi executive vice-president and chief operating officer John Burke.

Prior to joining Rovi, Longaker was senior vice president of sales at Alcatel-Lucent. Before this he worked at Nortel Networks.

The news comes less than a week after Rovi investor, hedge fund Engaged Capital, sent an open letter to the firm expressing “frustration with board’s intransigence and lack of progress on board reconstitution,” and declaring it had formally nominated four candidates for election at Rovi’s 2015 annual meeting.

According to a Reuters report last week, Rovi has hired investment bank Credit Suisse to help defend itself against the proxy fight by the activist investor.