Carl J. Yankowski (July 22, 1948 – May 13, 2023) was an American businessman who served as the CEO of Palm, Inc. and Ambient Devices.
Early life
Yankowski was born on July 22, 1948, in Butler, Pennsylvania, the son of Helen Margaret (Miseyka) and Mitchel Carl Yankowski.
Yankowski attended Butler Senior High School in Butler, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1966. He gained simultaneous degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and management from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
He also took a
humanities Academic minor in
Art history at Wellesley College, as one of the first men to attend.
Career
Early career
Upon graduation he worked as a
systems analyst for Procter & Gamble but discovered that he enjoyed leveraging both marketing and technology. He developed new products and promotional campaigns for
Pringles and
Duncan Hines mixes. He then moved to
Memorex where he helped develop the first high-performance
Cassette tape, and with
Ella Fitzgerald worked on the "Is It Live Or Is It Memorex" campaign before joining
Pepsi, expanding
Mountain Dew, launching
Two-liter bottle and
Backlight Vending machine, and working on the three-year
Pepsi Challenge campaign for
PepsiCo, beating
Coca-Cola in
market share for the first consistent time.
At General Electric, he helped develop the Spacemaker range with its "We Bring Good Things to Life" campaign. He then worked in the U.S. and London as divisional CEO of Cadbury Schweppes, focused on new soft drink delivery systems.
Polaroid
Yankowski joined Polaroid Corporation in 1988 as a corporate vice president with initial responsibility for all business imaging, U.S. consumer and industrial marketing before moving to
Hong Kong as group vice president for the corporation's Asia/Pacific region. He then returned to the United States to become the president and CEO of
Sony Electronics in November 1993, almost doubling the U.S. businesses by $5 billion, and launching
PlayStation,
Vaio, CDMA phones, and
DVD, as well as
DirecTV, Web TV, and others. Yankowski left Sony in January 1998 "to address immediate family health issues" (his father was dying). He became president and chief executive officer of the
Reebok Brand in September 1998, initiating cost-cutting and a turnaround, as well as a re-focus on women and fitness.
Palm
Yankowski joined 3Com to head its Palm division on 13 December 1999. In his first year at Palm, he became chief executive officer, transforming the division of 3Com into a
public company with a billion-dollar+
IPO and market capitalization of US$30 billion.
Yankowski gained notoriety for his appearance on a CNBC interview on the day of the Palm IPO, during which he wore a bespoke suit embroidered with gold pinstripes. Profitable revenue increased five consecutive quarters to over $1 billion as the dot-com bubble collapsed. He left Palm
Ambient Devices
After Palm, he took up positions on the boards of the
Boston College business school and the MIT Sloan School of Management and several technology and consumer product-oriented companies. In 2007, he was appointed CEO of
Ambient Devices, a small consumer electronics company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, raising funding, developing more contemporary new products, distribution, and marketing.
He was asked to remove himself from the company.
Other companies
Yankowski was a board member of flat-panel color display pioneer Uni-Pixel, Inc. (UNXL), which has developed a potentially more efficient display method called TMOS, as well as non-fingerprint films, and unique embossing technology for touch screens and similar applications. He also represented
Intel Capital on the board of Telligent in Dallas, a leading corporate social networking and analytics company.
Death
Yankowski died in Butler, Pennsylvania, on May 13, 2023, at the age of 74.
In media
Yankowski is portrayed by English actor
Cary Elwes in the 2023 biopic
BlackBerry, directed by Matt Johnson.
Further reading
