Netflix, Oracle, Spotify - Why Are Brands Choosing Co-CEOs?
Day and night, risk and reward, strategy and execution – some things are just meant to come as a pair.
Like CEOs, apparently. When Oracle announced Safra Catz’s shift from her decade-long tenure as CEO to Executive Vice Chair of the Board in late September, it brought a role to the fore that’s been tried, tested and delivered (with varying levels of success) by several other companies: the co-CEO.
In the case of Oracle, Catz’s departure opened the way for Clay Magouyrk and Mika Sicilia – two of the company’s most experienced heads – to take the joint helm.
Catz herself had been co-CEO at Oracle in 2014, sharing the top seat with Mark Hurd. Together, the pair steered the company’s transformation from database licensing to cloud computing services until 2019, when Hurd died, leading Catz to drive Oracle’s emergence as a cloud infrastructure leader.
It’s not just Oracle. On 29 September, Comcast named Mike Cavanagh as co-CEO alongside longtime leader Brian Roberts.
A day later, on 30 September, Spotify announced that Founder and CEO Daniel Elk will transition to the role of Executive Chairman effective January 2026. Gustav Söderström, co-President and Chief Product and Technology Officer, and Alex Norström, co-President and Chief Business Officer, will take the reins as co-CEOs.
Elsewhere, the likes of Netflix, Salesforce, SAP, Monster Beverage and others have explored doubling up their senior leaders at one time or another.
And while some of these partnerships have subsequently gone their separate ways due to restructuring, some endure.
A question of co-leadership
Co-leadership in itself is neither good nor bad, successful or otherwise. Some organisations have flourished under their respective co-CEOs, with collaboration bringing unique skill sets, diverse perspectives and the advantage of shared responsibility in increasingly complex and overworked boardrooms.
Netflix moved to a dual CEO model in July 2020, when Ted Sarandos – former Chief Content Officer – was promoted to the top job alongside then-CEO Reed Hastings. In January 2023, Hastings stepped down and Greg Peters was promoted to join Sarandos.
The pair have subsequently scaled the business past 300 million members, overseen record subscriber momentum and a growth in advertising, revenue and operating margins.
Much of this success relies on the clear division of responsibilities and areas of focus the pair have set out – Sarandos is committed to brand and content, while Peters oversees product, ads, pricing and partnerships.
“Having two CEOs is an incredibly powerful model,” Peters has previously said in an interview with The Verge, adding “it’s hard to pull off, but our culture is an enabling function for why the co-CEO model works at Netflix.”
Discussing the benefits of dual leadership with Fast Company, Sarandos noted that “having someone to talk to who is not an employee or a board member – who is your peer – is so helpful… it helps combat that lonely-at-the-top thing.”
Complementary expertise and mutual support
Announcing Magouyrk and Sicilia’s dual leadership at Oracle, Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison pointed to the depth and breadth of experience both have within the business and its key markets.
Magouyrk is a founding member of Oracle’s cloud engineering team while Sicilia has spent years modernising the cloud firm’s industry applications using the latest AI technologies.
“A few years ago, Clay and Mike committed Oracle’s Infrastructure and Applications businesses to AI - it’s paying off,” said Ellison. “They are both proven leaders, and I am looking forward to spending the coming years working side-by-side with them. Oracle’s future is bright.”
Evidence supports the benefits. According to a study by leadership psychology organisation AAPL, co-CEOs bring benefits around returns and performance.
Analysing 87 co-CEO-led public companies between 1996 and 2020, the study found they generated average annual shareholder returns of 9.5% when under dual leadership, compared to 6.9% for each firm’s relevant index. Close to 60% of companies outperformed.
According to Harvard Business Review, co-leadership arrangements share several common characteristics including complementary expertise at scale, enhanced organisation resilience, better succession planning and enhanced decision making.
Conversely, the most common challenges or triggers for failure are found in decision ambiguity, confusion and lack of clarity among shareholders and internal fragmentation or difficult dynamics.
Trust and collaboration
Companies currently using a co-CEO model include Netflix, KKR, Lennar, Gensler, Warby Parker and, most recently, Comcast.
In the case of the latter, the business has appointed Michael J. Cavanagh, who currently serves as President, to co-CEO alongside Chairman and longtime leader Brain L. Roberts.
Cavanagh has been with the business since 2015, joining as Chief Financial Officer before becoming President in 2023.
“Since joining Comcast a decade ago, Mike has proven himself to be a trusted and collaborative leader,” says Roberts.
“He is the ideal person to help lead Comcast as we manage the pivot we are making to drive growth across the company. Mike and I work seamlessly together, and I am thrilled to be partnering with him as Co-CEO and with the rest of our talented management team, for years to come.”
