PAX Labs brings on Bharat Vasan as new CEO

PAX Labs has a new CEO.

The company, which makes loose-leaf vaporizers, has brought on Bharat Vasan as Chief Executive Officer.

Vasan has spent the last 15 years in consumer hardware, serving as the President and COO of August Home, which was acquired by Swedish lock maker Assa Abloy in 2017. Before August, Vasan was the cofounder of Basis (a fitness-based wearable company), which was acquired by Intel in 2014 for $100 million.

Vasan has also spent time in the corporate world, serving as the COO and CFO for Electronic Arts’ Online team and overseeing the global M&A team from 2002 to 2010.

Vasan comes on during an interesting time for the company. In December, Juul (the e-cigarette branch of PAX Labs) spun out from its parent company seeking $150 million in funding. Around the same time, PAX Labs CEO Tyler Goldman left to pursue other entrepreneurial ambitions as the new Juul CEO, Kevin Burns, stepped into the position.

But with the companies split, it doesn’t make sense to share a CEO. And so Vasan has taken on the challenge of running PAX Labs.

Vasan says that PAX Labs plans to bring on between 50 and 100 new hires over the next 12 months across all departments. But his main focus is building a great culture within the company.

“There have been a lot of great high-growth companies in the Valley, but as they scale it’s hard to maintain a great place for people to work, especially in hardware companies,” said Vasan. “Hardware is a very complex ecosystem. We have growth and a great business and we’re scaling quickly, but my biggest challenge is to build a culture where the values, and being mission driven keeps people excited to come to work.”