Forte CEO switch confirmed: Sear out, Dart in

Last week a source told me that Forte Design had recently replaced the CEO they hired at the beginning of the year. Yesterday (12/20) before I posted my two part post “"DFM Deathwatch" and Merry Christmas!,” I wanted to reference the change and Forte so I checked out Forte’s website and was surprised that the company hadn’t issued a release on it. So I wrote the company and didn’t hear anything until late. I did see on the site however that the company issued a press release announcing that it received $5 mil in series D funding. I also noticed the canned quote in the release was attributed to my old buddy Lucio Lanza, who is a board member (its never a good sign when a board member is the spokesperson and there isn't a CEO quoted, too). I also saw that a couple of the trade papers wrote it up.

I’m surprised that the trades that wrote up articles on the funding announcement didn’t find it odd that a board member was the spokesman rather than the CEO…I consider that confirmation so I went ahead and posted the blog with a reference to a CEO replacement.

Then late last evening, the folks at Forte finally sent me a note officially confirming the replacement. The announcement is that Forte has replaced its former CEO, David Sear, with Sean Dart, previously Forte’s vice president of engineering. I haven’t talked to Forte yet and probably won’t be able to until the new year (cause I'm working on a feature). But I’d like to say Congratulations and Good luck, Sean and Forte. Keep Brett Cline. Any man that would wear a Chicken Suit for his company is a keeper.