In her first public comments since Indigo Books & Music went private May 31, founder and CEO Heather Reisman said that the company had had "four tough years" because of her "wrong decision" to step back for a while and the Covid epidemic, which together cost Indigo C$280 million (about US$205.2 million). Speaking during a live taping of the podcast Big Shot as part of Startupfest, an annual gathering of entrepreneurs and investors in Montreal, she also said she wants to return Indigo to its "core values.... I have to bring the company back to who we were. We got a little bit lost for two years." Her comments were reported by the Canadian Press News.
 |
|
| Heather Reisman | |
In September 2022, Reisman became executive chair of Indigo, and Peter Ruis was promoted to her former position of CEO. Reisman officially retired in August 2023, but Ruis resigned a month later, and Reisman returned as CEO. Also in 2023, the company also suffered a debilitating ransomware attack in February that knocked out systems and its website, and in June four board members resigned. Sales plummeted during Covid.
On the podcast, Reisman explained that the pandemic cost the company C$160 million (US$117.25 million) in cash, and her "two-year misstep" cost another C$120 million (US$87.9 million). "That's a lot of money for any retail company," she said. "And it basically cleaned the cash off my balance sheet."
The Canadian Press News reported that Reisman also indicated that she's interested in the connection between reading and brain development "in a world where attention spans have declined." She wants Canadian children to be the most literate in the world, and she is interested in the application of artificial intelligence to book curation.