A Conversation with Lila Snyder, CEO of Bose Corporation

On transformation, leadership, and building for the long term

Editor’s Note: The Harbus is continuing its Leadership series, featuring conversations with leaders across business and society. We sat down with Lila Snyder, CEO of Bose, to discuss her path to the top, what makes Bose distinctive, how she thinks about transformation, and what she looks for in leaders.

Pranav Bharadwaj: You took a somewhat unconventional path to the CEO role. You have a PhD, you spent years at McKinsey, and then moved into operating roles. Looking back, what most helped you get to where you are?

Lila Snyder: I don’t think there was any one thing. The most consistent thread across my career has been curiosity: the desire to learn new things and to understand how things work.

As an engineer, that started with how products work. At McKinsey, it became how businesses work and how leaders work. That kind of insatiable curiosity stayed with me the whole time, and it has served me really well.

PB: At what point do you decide to specialize? A lot of people talk about eventually becoming a certain kind of CEO: a finance CEO, a growth CEO, a turnaround CEO. Did you ever think about it that way?

LS: Not explicitly. I did not set out thinking I wanted to be a transformation CEO. But I was always drawn to change.

I found it really interesting to ask: how do you take something that has been great, where the world around it has changed, and bring it into a new era without losing what made it special in the first place?

That was the kind of work I gravitated toward at McKinsey. And, ultimately, that is why I am at Bose. Not because I spent my whole career in consumer electronics or audio, but because Bose was at one of those moments where it needed to transform, and that was the right skill set at the right time.

PB: You must have had opportunities to leave McKinsey earlier. What made you say no, until the right one came along?

LS: I was enjoying the work and learning a lot, so the bar to leave was high.

At McKinsey, I had the chance to see and be part of many different situations. Joining any one company often seemed interesting in the moment, but it was not always clear where it would lead after a year or two. Until the end, nothing really competed with what I was already doing.

PB: If you had to pick what makes Bose stand out, would it be sound quality, engineering, product design, or brand?

LS: If I can only pick one, it is technology.

Bose is built from science up. We research, develop, and create technology that delivers really amazing human experiences. The point is not just to have cool technology. It is to create something magical for the person on the other side of it.

That goes all the way back to our founding. If I had to choose one thing, that is the one.

The other thing I would add is the brand. We are fortunate to be one of the top brands in the world, and that is a very powerful place to be. So we want to keep investing in both the technology and the brand.

PB: Bose is recognized around the world. Which market is especially exciting to you right now?

LS: It is a somewhat difficult time around the world for consumers, so that is a tricky question. But from a technology standpoint, it is hard not to be excited by what is happening in China.

The pace of innovation there, and the ability to try things quickly, is extraordinary. As a technology company, that is very exciting for us, and our team there is doing some really interesting work.

PB: Do you see Bose always staying anchored in audio, or could the company move into adjacent consumer technologies over time?

LS: I am sure that, at some point, we will expand further. But right now, our focus is on bringing great audio to many more places.

In the past, our technology was reserved almost exclusively for Bose products. Today, we see that sound plays an important role across many industries and markets where Bose does not need to compete directly, but where our technology can still make a real difference.

So there is a lot of opportunity in consumer audio, automotive audio, and also in areas like health and wellness, mobile, enterprise, and industrial markets. There is so much room ahead of us in audio that, for now, it remains our singular focus.

PB: Bose is privately held, with a very distinctive ownership structure. How does that shape the way you run the company?

LS: It is a unique structure, and like any structure, it has pros and cons.

We cannot go raise equity to fund big ideas, so we have to live within what is available to us. But it also means we can make decisions for the long term. If we see something in the middle of the year that we want to invest in, we can pivot more easily than a public company can.

That only works if leadership and the board set high enough aspirations. We do not have an external shareholder creating that pressure for us, so that has to come from within.

But if you can maintain that discipline, there are huge benefits. We are willing to make bets that take years. The hearing aid we just launched with our partner Orka leverages years of technology and research we’ve been doing in this space. In many ownership structures, there would have been enormous pressure to shut that down long before launch. At Bose, we could keep our heads down and stay with it because we believed in the need, the technology, and the long-term value.

PB: You became the first female CEO of Bose. Did that shape how you approached the role?

LS: I was more focused on coming in as an outsider.

That is its own challenge. When you come in externally, you have to understand what makes the company special, what the magic is, and what absolutely should not be changed. At the same time, you have to help the organization move forward, because Bose needed to transform.

So I was very focused on listening, learning, and trying to take the company on a journey with me, rather than arriving and saying, “This is where we are going, come or do not come.”

And more broadly, I believe deeply in meritocracy. I do not want to be a great female CEO. I want to be a great CEO.

PB: You are now five years into the role. How has the job changed over time?

LS: It is definitely different.

I believe Bose will be in transformation forever, because that is the pace of the world now. In the first chapter of our transformation, the work was more nuts and bolts: get the product portfolio right, focus on the right markets, improve operations, and strengthen the brand. Reaching younger audiences was a big part of that.

What is exciting now is that we have shifted into the growth phase of the transformation. We have a stronger, more focused base, and now we are much more oriented toward executing on the future growth strategy. That is a really fun shift.

PB: When you hire senior leaders, what do you look for? And what are the red flags?

LS: Functional competence is the baseline. That is the bar. If I am hiring a chief marketing officer or a product leader, I assume they can do the job from a capability standpoint.

Beyond that, it is mostly about culture and fit.

Will this person fit on the leadership team? Will they add something? Will they work well inside the Bose culture? Companies have their own cultures, and some people fit and some do not. If someone is not a good cultural fit, you are not going to change that.

They may have been very effective elsewhere, but if they do not fit the culture, they may not be able to create change here.

PB: How do you actually test for cultural fit in a hiring process?

LS: You have to invest the time.

First, you spend time with the person yourself. And as you get further along, it helps to spend time in a more relaxed setting, over dinner or lunch, where you are really getting to know them as a human being rather than just conducting an interview.

Second, we deliberately have candidates meet a lot of people. Probably more than they would always like. But that helps us crowdsource the judgment. If someone meets ten people at Bose, we have a much better chance of understanding whether they are a cultural fit than if they meet only three.

It also works in the other direction. I always tell candidates that they should be interviewing us too. This is their chance to understand whether Bose is a culture they want to be part of and whether this is a team they want to join.

PB: Once leaders are in the door, how do you coach them? Do you want them to lead the way you lead?

LS: There are certain leadership behaviors you want to reinforce, of course. But I also want leaders to be authentic.

So the coaching is usually less about changing someone’s leadership style and more about helping them become their best self inside the Bose culture. It is about putting them in the right situations early, giving them the right support, and helping their style land well here.

PB: How do you balance coaching people and developing them versus bringing in outside talent?

LS: It is one of the most important decisions you make as a leader.

You have to assess your talent and figure out what matters most in each role. Some things are coachable and some are not. Sometimes someone is doing good work, but they are not the right fit for what the business needs next. Sometimes they are simply in the wrong role and belong somewhere else.

So you have to consider all of those possibilities. Can this person grow into what is needed? Is there a better role for them elsewhere in the organization? Or do you need to bring in someone from outside? It is always a judgment call.

PB: Having advised so many CEOs earlier in your career, how has your view changed now that you are in the seat yourself?

LS: I think about it differently now.

I talk to a lot of CEOs, and it is a great community of people trying to help each other. These are hard jobs, and there are parts of them that nobody else fully experiences. So your best source of advice is often your peers.

I have a long list of CEOs I can call if I am facing a challenge, and I have found that to be very reciprocal. If another CEO reaches out and wants to talk through something, I will always take that call.

PB: Has the job been harder than you expected?

LS: Some days, yes.

It is hard to answer because it is also more spectacular than I expected. There are days when I think, “Wow, this is much harder than I thought it would be.” And there are other days when I think, “This is more amazing than I imagined, and I am having more fun than I ever thought I would.”

It is a roller coaster. Often, both things happen on the same day.

PB: Last question: what is next?

LS: I think Bose is right on the edge of a very exciting chapter.

If you look at our growth strategy, our market position, and the technology developing in our labs, I believe Bose has a pretty great run ahead. I am excited to be part of it.

Lila Snyder is the Chief Executive Officer of Bose and a member of its Board of Directors. She leads the company’s portfolio of consumer audio brands and the automotive and audio technology businesses. Before joining Bose in 2020, she was President of Commerce Services at Pitney Bowes, and earlier spent 15 years at McKinsey & Company advising technology, media, and communications clients. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering.

Pranav Bharadwaj (MBA '27) is from London, UK and the current CEO of the Harbus News Corporation.