Pearson’s 59-year-old CEO Andy Bird is to quit, the education firm said today as it unveiled plans for his replacement after just three years in charge.
Bird, who joined the firm from The Walt Disney Company in 2020, will be succeeded in the new year by Omar Abbosh, the current president of Microsoft’s Industry Solutions arm and former chief strategy officer at consulting firm Accenture.
Abbosh will be awarded a base salary of £1 million, a 25% cut on Bird’s current base pay, and will be entitled to a bonus worth up to £7.5 million. Bird’s total pay in 2022 stood at £8.5 million. Just shy of a quarter of Pearson shareholders voted against its remuneration report at its 2022 AGM.
In a note, Bird said Pearson had asked him to “come out of retirement” in 2020 and that he had planned to “make the call to retire again” once he had delivered on his priorities. He said: “It has been an enormous privilege to lead Pearson through a period of significant change.”
Pearson shares fell 4.4% to 845p.
The Newcastle English graduate joined the education giant after a 14-year stint at the Walt Disney Company, serving latterly as Chairman of Walt Disney International. Before that he spent nine years at Warner Media.
He was awarded a CBE in the 2012 Queen’s birthday honours list for services to media and entertainment.
Bird oversaw a period of relative calm for the education giant, after several years of turmoil under previous boss John Fallon, during which time the firm sold off its stakes in the Economist and the Financial Times and Fallon’s pay package was rejected in a shareholder revolt.
Bird’s tenure saw the firm pivot into a technology-focused company, with the introduction of automated exam marking and Chat-GPT style learning assistants for students. Pearson shares are up around 60% since his arrival.
