Vimeo Ups Anjali Sud to CEO, As First Female to Hold Role at the IAC-Owned Business

Jocelyn Johnson
Jul 20, 2017 · 3 min read

After a year long search, Vimeo has found its next CEO — Anjali Sud — from within its own existing team. Sud, who the company appointed to run its 360 video business earlier this year under the role of GM and SVP of Vimeo’s Creator Platform, replaces Kerry Trainor, who departed the company last April after four years, and interim CEO Joey Levin.

Sud has seen the inner workings of Vimeo since 2014 when she initially ran marketing and later when she was elevated to GM and SVP of Vimeo’s SaaS offering to creators. She’s also spent time within top corporations Amazon and Time Warner.

“Having spent the last year inside the business working closely with Anjali and the team at Vimeo, [she] has stood out as a leader: she’s creative, confident, aggressive, and always thinks of our users first,” said Joey Levin, CEO of IAC. “She’s a natural leader, and I expect she will build a very big business at Vimeo.”

Vimeo has been under strategy duress for a few years now. Despite reports of the business’s continued growth, the platform has struggled to find an identity amongst the SVOD boom and hyper-saturated streaming video market. And, after losing CEO Kerry Trainor, two other long-standing senior executives — Greg Clayman and Sam Toles — also departed relatively quickly.

Then, in its first quarterly report post-Trainor, Levin noted that Vimeo would continue to be capitalized by IAC but would not venture to compete with SVOD. Six months later the company announced plans for subscription and then bowed out another 6 months later.

What was a janitorial job for Trainor may continue to be so for incoming CEO Sud, but with a new focus on the creator marketing and continuing to serve the premium talent that publishes to vimeo in favor of its more low-brow competitor YouTube, Vimeo’s team has hopes for a brighter future.

“Vimeo is entering an exciting chapter with a renewed focus on the core value that makes our brand special and beloved around the globe — being the #1 platform to empower video creators,” said Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo. “With a world-class brand, exceptional product and thriving community, we are uniquely positioned to define new standards of storytelling and lead the $10 billion video creator market.”

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