Netflix announced today that its Chief Financial Officer, David Wells, is going to be stepping down. Currently, there is no successor named for Wells position. Which has led to Wells sticking around until a successor is found for his position. Wells has been with Netflix since 2004, and has been the company’s CFO since 2010. Wells stated that “it’s been 14 wonderful years at Netflix, and I’m very proud of everything we’ve accomplished. After discussing my desire to make a change with Reed, we agreed that with Netflix’s strong financial position and exciting growth plans, this is the right time for us to help identify the next financial leader for the company.” Wells is intending on his next chapter to focus on philanthropy and big challenges, but he’s not too sure what that looks like just yet.
Reed Hastings also had kind words about David Wells, stating that he has been a valuable partner for Netflix over the years. Netflix has really flourished under Wells leadership. The company’s stock has also grown tremendously, not to mention the fact that Netflix has launched in hundreds of countries – just about every country except those that have censorship laws like Russia and China. Netflix has also invested a ton into creating original content for its service, so that it is not relying solely on content from partners like Fox, Sony, Disney and others.
Wells will be sticking around and helping Netflix find a new CFO. It’s unclear how long the company expects that to take, but Wells might be around until 2019 or later. The CFO position is a pretty important position, especially for a publicly-traded company. The stock of Netflix took a small tumble in trading today, down around 0.71-percent right now. So the departure of its CFO isn’t as big of a deal for Netflix as it would be for some other smaller cap companies.