Smartbird ממנה מנכ"לית חדשה לקידום
אסטרטגיית תשתית בינה מלאכותית
נדיה קרלסטן, מובילה בתעשיית הבינה המלאכותית והמחשוב
המתקדם, מונתה לנשיאה, מנכ"לית וחברת דירקטוריון
סן פרנסיסקו, 17 ביוני
2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) –
חברת Smartbird, Inc. (נאסד"ק: BIRD), ספקית תשתית בינה מלאכותית,
הודיעה היום על מינויה של נדיה קרלסטן לנשיאה ומנכ"לית. קרלסטן הצטרפה גם
לדירקטוריון של Smartbird.
Smartbird Appoints New CEO to Advance AI
Infrastructure Strategy
Nadia Carlsten, AI and advanced computing industry
leader, appointed president,
CEO and board member
Independent Director Lily Yan Hughes appointed as
board chair
Allbirds, Inc. name changed to Smartbird, Inc.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 17, 2026
(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) –
Smartbird, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIRD), an AI infrastructure provider, today
announced the appointment of Nadia Carlsten as president and chief executive
officer. Carlsten has also joined Smartbird’s board of directors.
The company has completed its previously announced definitive agreement to
sell the Allbirds brand and footwear assets. With the transition to Smartbird
now completed, the company also strengthened its balance sheet by increasing
the size of its convertible financing facility from $50 million to $100
million. The expanded capital base provides Smartbird with additional resources
to execute its AI infrastructure strategy.
A visionary and builder, 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.
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, Carlsten led the product portfolio across AI,
security and hardware platforms. She has also done extensive work on advanced
computing platforms, including launching Amazon’s quantum computing service
during her tenure at Amazon Web Services.
Carlsten actively contributes to global technology discourse, advising on
strategy, investment decisions and scaling of AI and digital platforms. As a
member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Next Generation
Computing, Carlsten advises on the strategic implications of advanced computing
and AI infrastructure.
Carlsten holds bachelor degrees in chemistry and physics from the
University of Virginia, and a doctorate in engineering from the University of
California, Berkeley.
Carlsten replaces Joe Vernachio, who is resigning from the company and the
board of directors. Annie Mitchell will continue to serve as chief financial
officer, a position she has held for the past three years. Lily Yan Hughes, who
has served as an independent director of the company since October 2025, has
been appointed board chair. Hughes has extensive technology experience and a
30-year track record of operational excellence across corporate governance,
capital markets and corporate finance.
“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,” said Hughes. “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.”
The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented
structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute. The AI
infrastructure market is entering a new phase as enterprises move from
experimentation to production-scale deployment, creating demand for dedicated
infrastructure that is more flexible and cost-efficient than traditional
hyperscale cloud offerings. Smartbird delivers dedicated AI infrastructure as a
managed service, providing the performance, control, and scalability of ownership
without the capital investment and operational complexity. The company is in
active discussions with prospective customers across its target verticals and
is currently designing its first cluster deployments.
"Smartbird is entering the market at a pivotal moment in the evolution
of AI infrastructure," said Dr. Carlsten, CEO of Smartbird. "AI is
rapidly becoming mission-critical for organizations across every industry, yet
many organizations lack a practical path to deploy and operate the dedicated
infrastructure these workloads require.
There is a clear opportunity to meet the growing need for enterprise-grade
AI infrastructure that delivers control and performance without the capital and
operational burden of hardware ownership. With a differentiated strategy,
significant capital, and the opportunity to build an exceptional team, we are
uniquely positioned to capitalize on one of the most significant infrastructure
opportunities of the next decade.”
About Smartbird, Inc.
Smartbird delivers dedicated AI infrastructure as a service, giving
organizations the performance, control, and security of a private AI cluster
without requiring them to finance, operate, or maintain the underlying
infrastructure. Smartbird manages the entire lifecycle, from procurement and
deployment to operations and hardware refreshes, so customers can focus on AI
workloads, not AI infrastructure.
Stock Information
Effective today, Allbirds, Inc. has changed its name to Smartbird, Inc. The
company’s Class A common stock listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market will
continue to trade under the ticker symbol “BIRD” and its CUSIP number remains
unchanged.
Inducement Grant
The company has approved, as a
material inducement to Dr. Carlsten entering into employment with the company,
a restricted stock unit award (“RSU Award”) that is intended to qualify as an
“inducement grant” in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4). The RSU
Award is comprised of 1,532,379 RSUs converting into an equal number of shares
of the Class A common stock, with 255,397 shares vesting immediately and the
remaining shares vesting in 16 equal quarterly installments.
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