Matthew Anderson (Courtesy of Roku)
Matthew Anderson is leaving Roku after serving as its chief marketing officer for seven years — and he’s joining James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems investment company as a strategic adviser.
Anderson, a former News Corp and Sky exec, announced Monday that he will exit Roku effective in December. A Roku rep confirmed his departure but declined to comment. At this point, Roku has not identified a replacement for Anderson as CMO.
According to Anderson, who announced his new role with Lupa in a LinkedIn post, he first worked with James Murdoch when the latter became CEO of Star TV (then owned by News Corp) in 2000.
“I am thrilled to be joining Lupa Systems as Strategic Advisor in December, co-investing with James Murdoch and his exceptional team to scale businesses shaping media, security, sustainability and India/East Asia for years to come,” Anderson wrote. “I’ll be joining long-standing colleagues to support inspiring and disruptive companies and deploy Lupa’s playbook.”
Murdoch formed Lupa Systems last year, after he left as CEO of 21st Century Fox following Disney’s acquisition of major pieces of the 21CF empire. Since then, Lupa has acquired stakes in Vice Media Group and location-based VR startup the Void. Lupa also teamed with Attention Capital, led by former 21st Century Fox exec Joe Marchese, to acquire a controlling stake in Tribeca Enterprises.
Anderson joined Roku in 2012 as a strategic adviser and was named Roku’s first chief marketing officer in 2013. In his LinkedIn post, he said his professional vision at the time “was to become CMO of an engineering-led company; to help take it public; and work at the disruptive edge of media.”
Anderson called Roku CEO Anthony Wood “an inventor, entrepreneur and critical thinker who creates products that make TV better for everyone.”
At Roku, “we’ve scaled in the face of tech giants, transformed our business model, gone public on Nasdaq and become the No. 1 TV streaming platform in the U.S.,” Anderson wrote. “Roku’s greatest innovations are to come. After moving on I will remain its biggest fan.”
Prior to Roku, Anderson worked at News Corp as group director, strategy and corporate affairs for Europe and Asia based in the U.K. Before that, he was at British satellite operator Sky as group director for communications and brand marketing. Prior to joining Sky in 2005, Anderson worked at Ogilvy Public Relations for more than 13 years, most recently as regional CEO for Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.
James Murdoch, meanwhile, this summer quit the board of News Corp, led by his father, executive chairman Rupert Murdoch, over “disagreements over certain editorial content.” Prior to that, in March, Lupa Systems announced that it was teaming with seed-stage venture-capital firm Betaworks to launch an incubator to invest in startups developing “humane tech,” including platforms and tools to combat fake news, abuse and spam on social networks.
Variety's Todd Spangler contributed to this post.
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/roku-matthew-anderson-exits-james-murdoch-lupa-systems-1234795043/
