Variety: Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja Resigns From Roku Board

Story from Variety:

Ravi Ahuja will depart Roku‘s board of directors after more than a decade, following his promotion to CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

On Tuesday of this week, Ahuja notified the Roku board that he intends to resign as a director effective June 11, the date of the company’s 2025 annual meeting of stockholders, “due to the time commitment required of his role as president and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment,” according to a Roku SEC filing Friday.

“Mr. Ahuja’s resignation is not the result of any disagreement with the Company or the Board on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies or practices,” Roku said in the filing, using standard boilerplate language for such situations. With his departure, the size of the board will be reduced from nine to eight directors. Ahuja originally joined Roku’s board in February 2013, when he worked at Fox Networks Group and led its early investment in Roku.

Roku’s other board members are: Roku chairman and CEO Anthony Wood; former top Amazon exec Jeff Blackburn; former Sky Group exec Mai Fyfield; BrightSign CTO Jeffrey Hastings; Columbia Business School economics professor Laurie Simon Hodrick; Neil Hunt, former chief product officer at Netflix and currently CPO at ecotechnology startup Vibrant Planet; Gina Luna, partner in GP Capital Partners; and Ray Rothrock executive chairman of cybersecurity firm RedSeal.

Ahuja assumed his new responsibilities as CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment in January. He was previously promoted to SPE’s president and COO last year, at which time he moved to Sony’s Poitier Building in Culver City, while still retaining his position as chief of Sony Pictures Television.

Before joining Sony in March 2021, Ahuja was president of business operations and CFO of Walt Disney Television. He is credited with playing a central role in merging Disney/ABC Television and Fox Networks following Disney’s acquisition of Fox in early 2019. During his 12 years at Fox, Ahuja among other things led the company’s participation in the Hulu joint venture.