Who is Peloton’s new CEO Barry McCarthy?

PELOTON is counting on veteran tech executive Barry McCarthy to revive the company after a few years of ups and downs.

Following prior successes as CFO at Netflix and Spotify, McCarthy is entrusted with spearheading a turnaround at Peloton as the company’s new CEO.

Who is Peloton’s new CEO Barry McCarthy?

The new Peloton CEO has a track record of assisting businesses in their transformation. 

McCarthy, 69, has sat on the boards of firms ranging from Pandora to Rent the Runway and Instacart. 

McCarthy began working for Netflix in 1999, two years after its founder, current CEO Reed Hastings, founded the company. 

McCarthy worked as Netflix’s chief financial officer until 2010, at which time he assisted in the company’s transition from delivering DVDs to an online streaming business that has since disrupted the entire entertainment sector.

He worked at Spotify for eight years. 

In 2014, he became a board member of the audio platform, and in 2015, he became its full-time chief financial officer. 

McCarthy pioneered a way for companies to go public through a direct listing rather than an initial public offering as a chief financial officer, which Spotify executed in April 2018. 

He promoted direct listing as a method to avoid the expenses, travel, and other hassles that come with an initial public offering.

What did Barry McCarthy say about becoming Peloton’s CEO?

McCarthy set the framework for his intentions to turn around the beleaguered connected fitness company in an email addressed to Peloton staff late Tuesday.

This was following the revelation that the former Netflix and Spotify executive will succeed Peloton founder John Foley as CEO.

In the email, which was obtained first by Business Insider, McCarthy wrote: “We have to be willing to confront the world as it is, not as we want it to be if we’re going to be successful.

“If you thought today’s news meant John [Foley] would be scaling back his involvement with Peloton, then let me assure you … I plan on leveraging every ounce of John’s superpowers as a product, content, and marketing visionary to help make Peloton a success as my partner.”

​​“And now that the reset button has been pushed, the challenge ahead of us is this … 

“do we squander the opportunity in front of us or do we engineer the great comeback story of the post-Covid era?”

Reuters

Who is John Foley?

John Foley, an American businessman and business leader, is a co-founder of Peloton. 

He has also worked at Barnes & Noble as a president.

Foley graduated from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Harvard Business School with a Master of Business Administration.

Foley, who stepped down as Peloton’s CEO last week to become executive chairman, has so far avoided calls for his dismissal from activist investors, who claim his mismanagement wasted the company’s pandemic-era sales surge and led to the stock’s 75% drop in the last year.