“What initially connected me with Linus was the passion for product,” Barrocas said. “We’re all about consumer-focused, disruptive innovation and great storytelling that creates consumer demand. If you have a great, disruptive product and you tell a bad story, it doesn’t work. You can have a great story, but if the product doesn’t resonate with consumers, it doesn’t work. You need both.”
Karlsson starts at SharkNinja on March 3. Ikea has not announced a replacement for him.
He will be based in New York, where SharkNinja is set to open a new Creative Design Hub later this year, and will travel frequently to SharkNinja’s global headquarters in Needham, Massachusetts.
Karlsson said his interest in SharkNinja surged after he saw a video of Barrocas presenting last fall at IFA Berlin, the consumer technology trade show.
“I was like, ‘Holy smoke, who’s this guy? No one talks like this,’” said Karlsson. “He had this whole thing about being in the consumer problem-solving business. I loved that. I was very happy at Ikea, but the more I learned about SharkNinja, I was like, ‘Wow, there is something new going on here.’”