Ben Cox is leaving Netflix after securing major partnerships across Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, and helping on board a dedicated sales team. He leaves under good terms and is seeking a fresh challenge.
Cox joined the global streamer during Covid and at a time when ad sales were being handled by Microsoft.
He led Netflix’s new and existing partnerships with a range of Australian companies, including internet service providers, subscription television operators and consumer electronics device manufacturers.
Under his watch, Netflix secured partnerships with the likes of AGL Energy and Optus, and major deals across Southeast Asia. Last year, Netflix announced it was insourcing its ad sales function and Cox has helped with that transition in this market.
“At the time I joined, we only had a handful of people but the business has grown a lot since then with a permanent office and probably 50-plus people,” he said.
“When I started, I was looking after all of our enterprise partnerships across Australia, New Zealand and we did a lot of good business. The role then expanded to cover Southeast Asia as well, and we signed most of the major deals in markets like the Philippines.
“We Netflix insourced its ad sales function last year, they kind of seconded me in for a period of four or five months, just to help with that transition until they hired a new team, which is now in place.
“At the end of all of that, to be honest, I’ve delivered huge revenue gains across all of the partnerships…and there were no major challenges left for me in the market.”
Cox said that there were no other roles at Netflix in Australia that suited him and left the business on good terms.
Prior to Netflix, Cox was the vice president of business development, pay and growth projects at ViacomCBS, and also served as the vice president and general manager of Nickelodeon for three and a half years.
He worked at Foxtel for more than eights years in a variety of senior roles including GM of content aggregation.
Cox leaves Netflix in a strong position. The streamer initially struggled to build audience scale for its advertising tier in Australia by launching with an opt-in approach while rival streamers automatically transferred subscribers to advertising.
In 2024, Netflix started building audience scale and has been projected, by Ampere Analysis, to become the third largest ad-supported streamer in Australia by 2027, with advertising revenues of around $150 million.
“Netflix is a great company with a unique culture and it is doing really well. They’ve had some big wins, particularly in the live space, but I believe there is a lot of runway ahead of them,” Cox said.
