Barnes & Noble has had a rough few quarters, with the company losing tens of millions or dollars on lagging sales of its Nook tablets and e-readers. But throughout all that pain, one man has consistently acted as Barnes & Noble's most outspoken advocate: Michael P. Huseby, formerly the company's president and CEO of its Nook Media division. Today, the company announced Huseby has been promoted to CEO of the entire company, filling the vacancy left in the wake of the resignation of William Lynch last summer. The promotion is largely a ceremonial one, given that Huseby has been in charge of operations since Lynch's ouster six months ago.
Huseby has consistently defended Barnes & Noble's Nook devices, saying that the company's problems came about not from a lack of hardware quality but from "decisions that were made by [previous] management" with regards to the Nook forecast. He also has an extensive background in media, having worked as an executive at Charter Communications, Comcast, and AT&T, as The Wall Street Journal points out. But with a wave of cheap Android tablets now flooding the market and Amazon dominating e-book and paper sales, Huseby's newest job may is almost certainly his toughest yet. Still, for now he's staying the course, saying in a statement today that he believes Barnes & Noble is "positioned to maintain and grow its leadership position in the worlds of book-selling and the sale of digital media."
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