KOLKATA: The brain behind the content strategy of the undisputed king in streaming service has additional responsibility now. Netflix has named its chief content officer Ted Sarandos as co-CEO of the company. In addition to that, Netflix has also appointed Greg Peters to be its chief operating officer, in addition to his role as chief product officer.
“Ted has been my partner for decades. This change makes formal what was already informal -- that Ted and I share the leadership of Netflix,” Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings said while announcing the Q2 result.
Sarandos will continue as the company's chief content officer also. “My journey to co-CEO of Netflix has been as a fan of great entertainment. And that's my commitment to Netflix members going forward: to keep pushing the boundaries of what a consumer-first company can achieve for people who love stories,” he said.
"Ted’s been instrumental to our success as a company. While I saw streaming coming and pushed for it, Ted drove the revolution in our content strategy, which was way ahead of its time and has been key to our continued success. It was typical of his ability to see where the industry - and consumer tastes - are headed. He’s built an extraordinary team, attracting some of the most creative and best entertainment executives from all around the world," said Hastings.
Sarandos praised Hastings as an unbelievable role model and source of inspiration for him and stated in an earnings call, “my focus is to continue the successful train we’ve been on for the next 200 million subs around the world.”
"Greg’s appointment as COO reflects the strategic and analytical strengths he’s brought to our product team over the past 10 years. As we’ve grown, one of my biggest roles at Netflix has been to be broad across the company, getting to know many different people in every area of our business. This has helped Netflix stay mostly aligned, loosely coupled and very productive. In his new role, I want Greg to take on more of this work so that we continue to improve rapidly. Eventually he needs to know every corner of Netflix better than I do today," added Hastings.
These changes are part of a long process of succession planning, announced Hastings. "While transitions can be hard, I am optimistic because we have a well established culture that’s built to be flexible and many years to get good at this. I’m committed to Netflix for the long term,” he added.
