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(Sharecast News) - Allbirds shares surged on Wednesday after the former trainer maker changed its name to Smartbird and announced the appointment of a new chief executive following its decision earlier this year to shift to AI compute infrastructure.
The company appointed Nadia Carlsten as president and chief executive officer, replacing Joe Vernachio.
Annie Mitchell will continue to serve as chief financial officer, a position she has held for the past three years, while Lily Yan Hughes - who has served as an independent director since October 2025 - has been appointed board chair.
The company said Carlsten brings decades of "deep technical expertise" in AI compute infrastructure combined with commercial execution across platform scaling, go-to-market, partnerships and capital strategy.
She has served as a trusted partner to boards and investors, with a strong track record of building high-performing teams, stewarding capital and generating strong returns on investment, Smartbird said.
While serving as CEO of DCAI, an AI company delivering large-scale GPU compute infrastructure and enterprise AI, Carlsten launched a sovereign AI supercomputer in partnership with Nvidia. As vice president of product at Google spin-off SandboxAQ, she led the product portfolio across AI, security and hardware platforms.
Allbirds also said she has done extensive work on advanced computing platforms, including launching Amazon's quantum computing service during her tenure at Amazon Web Services.
Hughes said: "We are thrilled to usher in this new era of the company with Nadia at the helm. Her groundbreaking work and visionary mindset will be instrumental in establishing a foothold in the market and building a scalable long-term solution for enterprise customers.
"The board selected Nadia because of the breadth of her experience and demonstrated success delivering breakthrough ideas and initiatives at scale. The pairing of her vision and expertise with Annie's continued financial leadership make us confident in the trajectory of the business and our ability to build long-term shareholder value."
At 1632 BST, Allbirds shares were up 36% at $5.35.
The company announced its pivot from trainers to AI compute infrastructure in April, having agreed to sell the Allbirds brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39m.