Starkey Hearing Cleans House, Four Top Executives Out

Starkey Hearing Cleans House, Four Top Executives Out

No reason has been specified behind why four senior executives, with a combined 100 years of employment with the Eden Prairie private company, were let go.

Starkey Hearing Technologies gave several of its C-suite members the boot on Wednesday, most notably its president Jerry Ruzicka and chief financial officer Scott Nelson, as the Eden Prairie-based company continues an ongoing investigation.
 
Starkey employees received an company-wide email, the Star Tribune wrote, which addressed the immediate termination of Ruzicka, Nelson, its operations vice president Keith Guggenberger, and human resources vice president Larry Miller. A reason for the terminations was not included within the email.
 
Since the announcement, all four senior executives have been erased from Starkey’s website.
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Ruzicka had been with Starkey for more than 38 years. Nelson, Guggenberger and Miller all maintained a residency at Starkey extending beyond one to two decades each, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
 
Starkey declined to comment on the unexpected housecleaning.
 
The company is the fifth-largest hearing aid company in the world. With a worldwide staff size of 3,600 people, it is one of Minnesota’s largest private companies with estimated annual revenue of more than $500 million.
 
In July, Starkey threw its annual So the World May Hear Awards Gala, a fundraising event deemed the largest in Minnesota. Every year it is attended by high-profile guests: most recently, George W. Bush, Katy Perry and others. In 2014, the event reportedly raised $8.7 million in donations to provide free hearing aids to children and adults around the world.