Embattled fitness technology company Peloton has selected Liz Coddington, a veteran finance executive with experience at Amazon and Netflix, as its new CFO.
Coddington succeeds Jill Woodworth, who has been the cycling technology company’s finance chief since 2018. Woodworth, who led the company through its IPO, will stay on in an interim consulting role to ensure a smooth transition and help the company prepare its fiscal fourth quarter and full-year financial results, which are due at the end of June.
Coddington will inherit oversight of the company’s efforts to right the proverbial ship at Peloton and help it accomplish its goal of restoring the business to positive free cash flow in fiscal year 2023. In its third fiscal quarter of 2022, which ended March 31, Peloton reported -$746.7 million in free cash flow, down 266% year-over-year.
To help turn Peloton around, Coddington will lean on decades of experience in financial planning and analysis and operational finance at top technology companies, including Amazon, where she most recently served as the VP of Finance for its AWS business unit. She also brings experience from consumer-facing companies, including a stint as the CFO of Adara and Walmart.com and the VP of Financial Planning and Analysis at Netflix.
In a press release, CEO Barry McCarthy called Coddington an “invaluable addition to Peloton's leadership team” and highlighted her background working at major tech companies. He went on to add that Coddington “not only brings the expertise needed to run our finance organization, but she has a critical understanding of what it takes to drive growth and operational excellence.”
McCarthy, whose tenure as Netflix as its CFO overlapped with Coddington's time at the streaming giant, added, “I have seen her intellect, abilities, and leadership firsthand and am excited to work closely with her as we execute the next phase of Peloton's journey."
Peloton is in the midst of a company-wide turnaround to recover from a decline in revenue after the downturn of an at-home exercise boom spurred by COVID-19 era lockdowns, which at its peak saw the company’s subscriber base grow from around 700,000 to nearly 3 million.
McCarthy took over as the fitness brand’s chief executive to helm the rebuild in February 2022 and laid out three top priorities: stabilizing the cash flow, getting the right people in the right roles and growing again. He has since overseen cost-reduction efforts, including layoffs and the termination of plans to build a production and logistics campus in Ohio. McCarthy has also built out the company’s C-suite by adding Chief Supply Chain Officer Andrew Rendich and Chief People Officer Shari Eaton.
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