Carl J. Yankowski (July 22, 1948 – May 13, 2023) was an American businessman who served as the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Palm, Inc. Palm, Inc., was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and developing software. Palm designed the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, and was known for the Treo 600, one ...

and

Ambient Devices Ambient Devices, Inc. is a privately held company founded in 2001 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA that designs and markets various ambient devices for display of information ranging from weather to traffic reports to stock quotes. The ...

Early life

Yankowski was born on July 22, 1948, in

Butler, Pennsylvania Butler is a city in Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is north of Pittsburgh and part of the Greater Pittsburgh region. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,502. Butler is named after Major General ...

, the son of Helen Margaret (Miseyka) and Mitchel Carl Yankowski. Yankowski attended

Butler Senior High School Butler Area Senior High School is a coeducational public senior high school in Butler Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States, serving grades 9–12. The school has a Butler, Pennsylvania post office address. It is the senior high sc ...

in Butler, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1966. He gained simultaneous degrees in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

and management from the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (branded as MIT Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree progra ...

. He also took a

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

minor Minor may refer to: Common meanings * Minor (law), a person not under the age of certain legal activities. * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Mathematics * Minor (graph theory), a relation of one graph to an ...

Art History Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

, as one of the first men to attend.

Career

Early career

Upon graduation he worked as a

systems analyst A systems analyst, also known as business technology analyst, is an information technology (IT) professional who specializes in analyzing, designing and implementing information systems. Systems analysts assess the suitability of information syst ...

for

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/con ...

but discovered that he enjoyed leveraging both marketing and technology. He developed new products and promotional campaigns for

Pringles Pringles is an American brand of stackable potato-based chips invented by Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1968 and marketed as "Pringle's Newfangled Potato Chips". It is technically considered an Extruded food, extruded snack because of the manufac ...

and

Duncan Hines Duncan Hines (March 26, 1880 – March 15, 1959) was an American author and food critic known for his restaurant ratings for travelers. He is best known today for the brand of food products that bears his name. Early life, family and education ...

mixes. He then moved to

Memorex Memorex Corp. began as a magnetic tape, computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer el ...

where he helped develop the first high-performance

cassette tapes Cassette, also known as cassette tape, refers to a small plastic unit containing a length of magnetic tape on two reels. The design was created to replicate the way a reel-to-reel machine works with tape moving from one reel to another while bein ...

, and with

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April25, 1917June15, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phra ...

worked on the "Is It Live Or Is It Memorex" campaign before joining

Pepsi Pepsi is a Carbonated water, carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo which serves as its flagship product. In 2023, Pepsi was the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long ...

, expanding

Mountain Dew Mountain Dew, stylized as Mtn Dew in some countries and colloquially known as Dew in some areas, is a soft drink brand owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in 1940 by Tennessee beverage Bottler (company), bottlers Barney and A ...

, launching 2L plastic bottles and back-lit

vending machines A vending machine is an automated machine that dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or payment is otherwise m ...

, and working on the three-year

Pepsi Challenge The Pepsi Challenge is an ongoing marketing promotion run by PepsiCo since 1975. It is also the name of a cross country ski race at Giant's Ridge Ski Area in Biwabik, Minnesota, an event sponsored by Pepsi. Method The challenge originally took t ...

campaign for

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

, beating Coke in

market share Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a Market (economics), market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those ...

for the first consistent time. At

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

, he helped develop the Spacemaker range with its "

We Bring Good Things to Life "We Bring Good Things to Life" was an advertising slogan used by General Electric between 1979 and 2003. It was designed by the advertising firm BBDO led by project manager Richard Costello, who would later go on to become head of advertising at Ge ...

" campaign. He then worked in the U.S. and London as divisional CEO of

Cadbury Schweppes Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational corporation, multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelez International (spun off from Kraft Foods, Inc., Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second-largest c ...

, focused on new

soft drink A soft drink (see #Terminology, § Terminology for other names) is a class of non-alcoholic drink, usually (but not necessarily) Carbonated water, carbonated, and typically including added Sweetness, sweetener. Flavors used to be Natural flav ...

delivery systems.

Polaroid

Yankowski joined

Polaroid Corporation Polaroid Corporation was an American company that made instant film and cameras, which survives as a brand for consumer electronics. The company was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit his Polaroid (polarizer), Polaroid polarizing polyme ...

in 1988 as a

corporate vice president A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice ...

with initial responsibility for all business imaging, U.S. consumer and industrial marketing before moving to

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

as group vice president for the corporation's Asia/Pacific region. He then returned to the United States to become the president and CEO of

Sony Electronics is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (imaging and sensing), S ...

in November 1993, almost doubling the U.S. businesses by $5 billion, and launching

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

VAIO is a Japanese personal computer manufacturer headquartered in Azumino, Nagano, Azumino, Nagano Prefecture. It is owned by Nojima Corporation. Vaio began as a brand of Sony, introduced in 1996, until it offloaded it into an independent company ...

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...

phones, and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

, as well as DirectTV, Web TV, and others. Yankowski left Sony in January 1998 "to address immediate family health issues" (his father was dying). He became president and chief executive officer of the

Reebok Reebok International Limited ( ) is an American footwear and clothing brand that is a part of Authentic Brands Group. It was established in England in 1958 as a companion company to J.W. Foster and Sons, a sporting goods company which had bee ...

Brand in September 1998, initiating cost-cutting and a turnaround, as well as a re-focus on women and fitness.

Palm

Yankowski joined

3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...

to head its Palm division on 13 December 1999. In his first year at Palm, he became chief executive officer, transforming the division of 3Com into a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

with a billion-dollar+

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

and

market capitalization Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by ...

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

30 billion. Yankowski gained notoriety for his appearance on a

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

interview on the day of the Palm IPO, during which he wore a bespoke suit embroidered with gold pinstripes. Profitable revenue increased five consecutive quarters to over $1 billion as the dot-com bubble collapsed. He left Palm on 8 November 2001 when the OS Group was spun out by the board (leaving Palm a commodity hardware player), and most technology companies were caught up in the dot-com crash, and set up a management consultancy under the name 'Westerham Group'. He led Majesco (a gaming company) for a ten-month period until he discovered the recent sales forecasts for Psychonauts and Advent Rising were dramatically missed in this essentially

family-owned business A family business is a commercial organization in which decision-making is influenced by multiple generations of a family, related by blood, marriage or adoption, who has both the ability to influence the vision of the business and the willingne ...

. From June 2001 until February 2003 he was a director of

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

and chairman of the board for CRF Health, then a start-up company focusing on electronic patient diaries for clinical trials. From July 2003 he was a non-executive director of

Informatica Informatica Inc. is an American software development company founded in 1993. It is headquartered in Redwood City, California. Its core products include enterprise cloud data management and data integration. It was co-founded by Gaurav Dhillon a ...

and

Chase Corporation Chase Corporation was a property development company in New Zealand that flourished in the 1980s, became devalued in the 1987 New Zealand stock market collapse, and eventually collapsed in 1989. History Chase Corp had a major effect on the New ...

Ambient Devices

After Palm, he took up positions on the boards of the

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

business school and the

and several technology and consumer product-oriented companies. In 2007, he was appointed CEO of

, a small consumer electronics company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, raising funding, developing more contemporary new products, distribution, and marketing. He was asked to remove himself from the company.

Other companies

Yankowski was a board member of flat-panel color display pioneer Uni-Pixel, Inc. (UNXL), which has developed a potentially more efficient display method called TMOS, as well as non-fingerprint films, and unique embossing technology for touch screens and similar applications. He also represented

Intel Capital Intel Capital Corporation started off as the investment arm of Intel Corporation in 1991 and in January 2025, it spun off as a standalone investment fund. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies off ...

on the board of Telligent in Dallas, a leading corporate social networking and analytics company.

Death

Yankowski died in Butler, Pennsylvania, on May 13, 2023, at the age of 74.

In media

Yankowski is portrayed by English actor

Cary Elwes Ivan Simon Cary Elwes (; born 26 October 1962) is an English actor. He starred as Westley in ''The Princess Bride (film), The Princess Bride'' (1987), and also had lead roles in films such as ''Robin Hood: Men in Tights'' (1993) and the Saw (fr ...

in the 2023 biopic ''

BlackBerry BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

'', directed by Matt Johnson.