SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mason, innovator of the only fully managed infrastructure for developing and delivering dedicated smart devices, today announced that Nancy Xiao has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer. A mobile technology and hardware industry veteran, Nancy is a current member of the Board and has served as Mason’s President since she joined the company in October 2019. As CEO, she will assume day-to-day leadership of the company. Jim Xiao, Mason’s founder, has moved from his role as Chief Executive Officer and to his new role as President. He will lead business development and strategy, driving critical partnerships and alliances forward and contributing to Mason’s vision for the future. Through Jim’s and Nancy’s partnership, Mason has significantly expanded its global team and is on track for high growth in 2021–7x in under two years in the midst of the pandemic. The new leadership makeup positions Mason strongly for its next stage of innovation and growth.
“Since the day she joined, Nancy has been instrumental to Mason's growth. With Nancy at the helm, we believe the company will be in a strong position to fulfill its vision and seize the exciting opportunity ahead of us,” said Arielle Zuckerberg, Partner at Coatue Ventures. “We at Coatue are thrilled to see what Mason can accomplish in this next chapter of growth with both Nancy’s and Jim’s leadership.”
Before joining Mason, Nancy drove the product marketing function for emerging technologies including Parse, the first Backend-as-a-Service platform for mobile app developers, which was acquired by Facebook in April 2013. While working at Facebook, she led product development for Oculus Home, the virtual reality portal and community hub for the Oculus Rift and Quest platforms.
Mason Founder and President Jim Xiao said, “I’m confident that Nancy is the right person to build on Mason’s momentum. Nancy has been a close advisor from the company’s YCombinator days, onwards. We’ve partnered since she came onboard in 2019 to help scale Mason, bringing us to our current stage. Nancy has been a driving force behind Mason's success operationally and in her service on our female-led board. Her commitment to our customers’ success and to championing diversity and inclusivity across our company is unwavering. We are lucky to have her as our next CEO.”
During Nancy’s time as President, Mason experienced meteoric growth both in terms of company expansion and platform adoption. Between 2020 and 2021, Mason grew its workforce by 50% and increased the total number of devices on its platform by 40%. Under Nancy’s leadership, the company also expanded its marketing, customer success and operations teams and established new, critical roles in the product management department. Focused on creating an equitable workplace, Nancy led Mason’s increase of female employees from under 10% in 2019 to over 40% in 2021. Her commitment to diversity is also evidenced by the increase in the number of women in leadership positions — growing from 20% in 2020 to 58% in 2021.
“It has been a tremendous honor to serve as the CEO of Mason,” continued Jim Xiao. “My vision when founding Mason in 2016 was to disrupt old corporate design and create a platform where hundreds of new startups and aspiring entrepreneurs can create smart sustainable products on behalf of humanity. We started this company in a house as a small but relentless group of believers. We defied the odds time and time again, adopting a stage crew mentality much like the Stonemasons who paved the infrastructure for the Renaissance. As today’s Masons, we’re creating the infrastructure for the Software Renaissance. Through our technology, we’re unlocking innovation across industries – from remote patient monitoring to immigration reform and more.”
“Jim is a visionary and plays a vital role in helping our customers innovate and find new solutions to some old problems, solved via technology and innovation—he will continue this focus in his new role as President. I know I speak for everyone at Mason when I say that Jim has made a massive impact on our business strategy, product innovation and the development of our values-driven culture. We are grateful for his leadership, grit and tireless dedication to the company,” said Nancy Xiao, Mason CEO.
“I’m honored to lead Mason’s next chapter, in ongoing collaboration with our Board and leadership team, building on Mason’s success and manifesting the opportunities ahead for our customers, partners and team,” continued Nancy Xiao. “We have a vastly diverse set of end users so to best serve and create products for them, we’ve built an exceptionally talented, diverse team at Mason that is focused on innovation and inclusivity. We’ve not only rethought the way that hardware development is done, revolutionizing traditional industries, but now also defied the status quo of how businesses are led. We’ve built a platform that brings incredible products to life that make a tangible impact on humanity in various industries from healthcare to government. We also hope to make an impact on unconscious and conscious bias in the business world by doubling down on our commitment to inclusivity and investing in leaders and team members from diverse demographics across all levels of the company.”
“Today, women’s jobs aren’t only more vulnerable compared to their male counterparts, but women-led startups have also received significantly less venture funding. I look forward to upending this dynamic,” said Nancy Xiao.
About Mason
Mason is the fastest way to take smart devices from idea to end user. Whether building a single-use device from scratch or scaling a line of smart products, with Mason it’s 20x faster and 10x less costly to build, deploy and scale. Digital transformation is a modern requirement but operating a hardware-dependent initiative is hard – thousands of hours and millions of dollars are at stake. The Mason Smart Device Platform is the only fully managed infrastructure for developing and delivering dedicated devices. It offers flexible usage-based pricing for fleets of devices and manages the underlying complexity of all associated backend services, making software delivery on a smart product line—whether it’s a tablet, wearable or new form factor—as simple as delivering software in the cloud. This frees innovators to focus on what matters: application development, feature specification and UX. Granular access to add, remove or lock down capabilities makes it possible for highly customized products to be built as envisioned. Mason offloads hardware investment risks and logistics, including inventory procurement, warehousing and supply chain management. With options like zero-touch provisioning, devices work perfectly out of the box without end user intervention. Remote fleet management, troubleshooting and automated software updates by Mason ensure security and positive end user experiences. Organizations of all sizes rely on Mason to bring innovations and hundreds of use cases to market without reinventing the wheel. Smarter from start to finish with Mason.™
