Belkin International Inc. has been a leading consumer electronics company for more than 40 years, and Steven Malony has been with the business for nearly half its lifetime. Malony, who has been chief executive since January of 2021, said that the El Segundo-based company’s product focuses and the electronics market itself have evolved considerably over time. However, he said that nothing has changed for Belkin’s overall mission: to design products that empower people to get more life out of every single day.

Belkin was started out of founder Chet Pipkin’s garage as a computer-to-printer cable manufacturer in the early days of the internet. Belkin’s product line has shifted dramatically since then: while well known for its headphones, speakers and other audio products, Belkin has also invested heavily into products such as wireless charging equipment, screen protectors, device docks and a smart-home product line called Wemo.

Belkin moved its headquarters from Playa Vista to El Segundo in 2021. While its new home is smaller, it’s filled with consumer labs, expansive equipment testing spaces, design and production rooms and a career-connecting education program called Portal Learning for high-school students.

When the pandemic hit, shortly before Malony’s appointment as chief executive, supply chains were disrupted and the industry as a whole was thrown into disarray. Malony said that Belkin used that time to invest in consumer-insight research and the exploration of new engineering and design options. He said those decisions have since paid off handsomely. The company said it has seen a 12% compounded annual growth rate since the pandemic.

Belkin is continuing its investment in consumer research with a new division that was launched last month called Future Ventures, which is exploring avenues for Belkin in areas such as content creation, spatial computing, artificial intelligence and robotics equipment. 

Malony spoke with the Business Journal about the evolution of his career at Belkin, emerging products in the consumer electronics market and how Belkin is diversifying its interests. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been with Belkin for almost 20 years. Tell me a bit about how you’ve seen Belkin’s brand and focuses change over that time.

When I first started in this company, we were making cables, mostly networking cables to plug data centers together. We still make all those products today, but the world got revolutionized by mobile devices and so we had to adjust and adapt according to that, and we continue to do that now. That’s evolution. If we want to be here for another 40 years, and we do, and another 40 years beyond that, we always need to be prepared to adjust and move with the trends. I’m talking about it like it’s a new thing, but I think it’s the inception of our organization. We want to connect things together, we want to connect people together, and that has never changed. Because we have that sort of cemented in our being for who we are and what we stand for as an organization, it’s just helped provide the guidance and the thinking that we need to propel us forward. 

January marked three years for you as chief executive. Could tell me about what things were like when you first came in as leader of the company, and what you inherited when you took the reins?

I was very fortunate to have the chance to work very closely with (founder Chet Pipkin) for many, many years. He’s a founder, he’s an icon in our industry, he’s been somebody who spent a lot of time with me to help make sure that I was ready for the position that I was in. And, could I have picked a better time? I mean, we were right in the middle of Covid-19, everything was depressing in the market, there was massive supply chain constraints all over the place, components were short, it was just a very tumultuous time in our organization. We saw it as an opportunity to continue to invest in the things that we thought really mattered: differentiation, engineering and design spaces, figuring out what’s going to come next in our industry.

I think emerging out of (the pandemic), while the markets are challenged, our core businesses have really flourished and we’re seeing the benefits now from the decisions we made a few years ago.  If I’m considering how we’re going to be in a space where we’re continuing to be looked at as a leader in accessories, we’ve got to find ways to continue to grow. This Future Ventures area for us is intended to position us for where we’re going to go in the future, and there will be some winners and some losers there. We’re not going to win every single time – I wish we did, but we don’t, so we’re going to have to continue to take some chances. I feel really good about that because of the people that we have here.

Belkin started with network cables, but is now in the audio equipment market and exploring smart-home tools. What does the consumer electronics market look like right now?

I couldn’t have thought 20 years ago that we would be where we are right now, and I think that it’s going to be fun to see what happens next, because it’s always going to continue to evolve, grow and develop … spatial computing, content creation (and immersive technology), I think, are going to be big things and are not going to go anywhere. I think the adoption rates on those things as people figure out how to leverage them is just going to continue to scale.

How do you prevent Belkin from spreading itself too thin? 

We have to guard against that. One of the interesting things is that there’s this convergence taking place where, instead of things going further apart, they’re coming together more. Some examples of that would be around docking. Before, you needed to have a cable and a separate charger. Now, you’ve got all those things combined into one product that sits on your bedside. So, we need to make sure that we’re not spreading ourselves too thin, but a lot of things are converging at the same time. I think that’s going to continue to happen over time, where people are able to get more productivity out of fewer things that are combined … you may ask, ‘well, isn’t that scary for you, because things that you make are getting integrated into the actual host devices?’ Yes, but it’s just going to create a new bevy of opportunities for us to pursue. I like being in that space because I’ve got consumer-insights labs, I’ve got industrial design and we have visibility to what’s coming next in some cases that we can apply to the kind of accessories that we’re building to make that consumer experience great. 

“What I’ve learned over time is that having diversity of ideas, and diversity of thinking, that’s how you arrive at the best ideas.”

At any point in your career, what was a big mistake you made and something you learned from it?

I think that early on in my career, I probably expected everybody to think the way that I think and to have a point of view that’s similar to mine all the time, and it would be challenging and frustrating because those things didn’t match up. What I’ve learned over time is that having diversity of ideas, and diversity of thinking, that’s how you arrive at the best ideas.

Conversely, was there any decision you made in the last three years, or anything you pushed to accomplish, that you’re particularly proud of? 

I think that the opportunities that we’ve taken to lean into the investments rather than to pull away when times were tough is something that I’m proud of. We could have made the choice to become more insular and to pull back on the things that we were doing, but we didn’t. That has helped us refine the things that we need to do … if we’re going to have labs here, they better be productive, and if we’re going to be developing products, we better have a high hit rate. The decisions to power through some really tough times and to be confident in the direction that we’re going in is probably one of the things I’m most proud of. I wouldn’t just take credit for that myself, though. I’m surrounded by a great team of people helping formulate the thinking we’re doing here. Sure, I’m the guy who you’re talking to today, but there’s a great group of people that are sitting alongside me to make this happen.

What are your plans for 2024?

I would point us back to the Future Ventures area. We’ve got products now shipping in spatial computing (and) content creation, we’ve got things in the works around robotics and other things that are coming in those spaces that I think are going to drive our growth. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the core products that we make, I mean this transition from wired to wireless around mobile power is going to continue to scale: the innovation, the charging speeds, the charge times, the way that you can use them, all those things are going to continue to accelerate, and I think we’re really in a great spot to be able to bring those experiences to consumers.

Throughout your tenure at Belkin, have you identified any strengths or weaknesses you want to focus on?

When I first started here, I was a sales guy calling on B2B (business to business) consumers, knocking on doors and just trying to figure out what do consumers need and want, what do businesses need or want, and then navigating that back into our organization to figure out what we’re going to do to make that experience great. I’ve learned a lot over the years through that process, and I think that’s core to the talent that we have at Belkin. We’ve got a lot of really tenured people that have been through similar experiences and that makes us different than what other companies are doing today. So, strengths are our people and what we stand for. The company’s weaknesses could be (having) too many ideas, too much to do. Staying focused on the things that we really need to execute is always going to be a process for us.