John Foley's Departure: A New Era for Peloton

Peloton is making changes after a turbulent few months. Today, the company announced that John Foley, co-founder and CEO of Peloton, will be stepping down as executive chair. Peloton plans to eliminate approximately 2,800 jobs. This equates to 20% in its corporate workforce.

Foley stated in an interview that Peloton is open to exploring any opportunity that could bring value for its shareholders.

In an interview, Mr. Foley stated that he was open to discussing any potential opportunity that could generate value for Peloton shareholders. Peloton was founded by Mr. Foley last month 10 years ago. He is a former executive at Barnes&Noble Inc.

Barry McCarthy will be Peloton’s new CEO. McCarthy was previously the CFO at Spotify and Netflix, and is currently on the board for Instacart and Spotify.

Peloton claimed that McCarthy had “entered the picture” in the last few weeks and that the company “had been long planning to hire a CEO.

Mr. Foley, 51, stated that he has always believed there must be a better Peloton CEO than me. “Barry is better suited than anyone I could have imagined.”

McCarthy stated, “Together, we can make a complete grownup and build an absolutely remarkable business.” Peloton investor Technology Crossover Ventures has been his consultant. He sits on the boards at Instacart Inc., Spotify and was the CFO of the music streaming service until the beginning of 2020.

Peloton plans to reduce annual costs by $800 million and capital expenditures by $150 millions. Peloton also plans to “wind down” the development of its $400 million Ohio Output Park plant.

Other executive changes include the resignation of William Lynch, who will continue to serve as Peloton’s President but will not be resigning. Erik Blachford who has been a director since 2015 will be leaving the board. Peloton will also be adding Angel Mendez to the board and Jonathan Mildenhall. Mendez runs a “private artificial-intelligence company focused on supply-chain management” and Mildenhall is the former chief marketing officer of Airbnb.

Peloton also reiterated its commitment to increasing its profitability and promised more information in its earnings report. It reported Q2 revenue in the range of $1.14 billion, and 2.77 millions subscribers.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the announcement of a new CEO may indicate that Peloton doesn’t want to acquire any company at this time. Rumours have it that companies such as Nike, Amazon, Apple could all be considering such a deal.