Netflix chief accounting officer gives up $2.4 million position after just 4 months on the job

By Ciara Linnane

Netflix Inc. is seeking a new chief accounting officer after its current one quit the role after less than four months.

The streaming giant /zigman2/quotes/202353025/composite NFLX -0.38% said in a regulatory filing Friday that Ken Barker has submitted his resignation effective Oct. 7. Barker, 55, joined the company on June 27 from Electronic Arts Inc. /zigman2/quotes/206954087/composite EA +0.68% , where he was senior vice president finance, the company disclosed in a June filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Netflix stressed that the move is a personal decision and is “not the result of any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company’s financials, operations, policies, or practices.”

The company named Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann as principal accounting officer while it conducts a search for a replacement for Barker.

Prior to his role at Electronic Arts, Barker was at Sun Microsystems Inc. as vice president, corporate controller, and served as an audit partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP.

His base salary at Netflix was $2.4 million with a $600,000 annual stock option allowance, according to the June filing.

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The news comes as Netflix gears up for the addition of a new ad-supported streaming service tier, a move that came after disappointing subscriber news early in the year amid heightened competition from new streamers, notably Walt Disney Co.’s /zigman2/quotes/203410047/composite DIS 0.00% Disney+ service.

In April, the company stunned investors with the its first loss of subscribers since the service was in its infancy and executives mooted adding a lower-priced tier with ads, a move that Founder Reed Hastings had resisted for years.

In the second quarter, the company lost half as many subscribers as feared and said it expected to add more in the third quarter, easing some of the pressure on its stock.

In May, it announced layoffs of about 150 employees, most of them in the U.S. and including some in the executive ranks and in the animation division.

Netflix shares fell about 5% Friday and are down about 62% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 /zigman2/quotes/210599714/realtime SPX -0.09% has fallen 23%.

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