LONDON — Analog and mixed-signal fabless chip company Wolfson Microelectronics plc (Edinburgh, Scotland) has announced that Dave Shrigley is to step down as CEO at the end of the year for personal family reasons and return to live full-time in the United States.

The company's board of directors also announced that it as appointed Mike Hickey as CEO Designate expected to take over as CEO from Jan. 1 2009. Shrigley is set to leave the board and the company at the end of 2008, the company announced.

Hickey, 49, joins Wolfson from Motorola Inc, where from March 2005 he has held senior positions in Motorola’s mobile device business. Most recently he was senior vice president and general manager of the multimedia product organization. Wolfson stated that Hickey was a non-executive director at the time venture-capital backed private company Incline Global Technology Services Ltd. (Belshill, Scotland) was placed into administration in September 2005. Hickey had executive director responsibilities at the company between December 2002 and September 2003 and from April 2004 to September 2004.

Before he worked for Motorola he held senior positions at Alcatel Optronics and before that worked for Motorola, Digital Equipment and Philips.

"The company has benefited significantly from the strategic direction which Dave has brought. Under his leadership we have developed the AudioPlus strategy, enabling an expansion of our product offering and future addressable markets. In addition, Dave has led Wolfson in the strengthening of the executive team and the product development pipeline. Dave has played an important role in the process of selecting Mike to lead the company into the next phase of its development and the board would like to thank him for his guidance and contribution," said Michael Ruettgers, chairman of Wolfson, in a statement.

"[Mike Hickey's] knowledge and insight of the consumer electronics industry will be a great asset to Wolfson and we look forward to his leadership as we continue to execute our growth strategy," Ruettgers also said.

"Wolfson has a world-renowned brand for audio technology and has some of the world's best and most innovative engineers working with leading consumer electronics brands as customers," said Hickey, in the same statement.

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