SiriusXM Taps Tubi Chief Anjali Sud to Succeed Jennifer Witz as CEO

SiriusXM announced Monday that Anjali Sud, the chief executive of Fox Corporation's free streaming service Tubi, will become the satellite radio company's next CEO, succeeding Jennifer Witz, who is stepping down after nearly 25 years at the company. The transition takes effect January 1, 2027.

The appointment, disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, hands control of one of the country's largest audio-entertainment companies to an executive with no background in radio but a record of running subscription and ad-supported streaming platforms. Sud has sat on SiriusXM's board since March 2025 and will remain a director after taking the chief executive role. Witz will leave the board at the end of this year and serve in an advisory capacity through December 2027.

The Terms of the Transition

Under an employment agreement between Sud and SiriusXM subsidiary Sirius XM Radio LLC, she will receive an annual base salary of $2.6 million and a target bonus equal to twice that amount, guaranteed at full target for 2027. Her sign-on package includes restricted stock units worth $10 million that vest over two years, plus additional time-based and performance-based awards worth $4.5 million apiece, according to the filing. Beginning in 2028, her annual equity grants are guaranteed to be worth at least $9 million a year. The contract runs through the end of 2029 with automatic one-year renewals.

Witz's separation terms are comparatively modest. Under a transition agreement also filed with the SEC, she will remain eligible for a 2026 bonus and keep her vested stock options exercisable, then serve as a paid adviser from January through December 2027 for a consulting fee of $175,000 a month.

The handover comes eleven days after SiriusXM reported third-quarter results that beat the company's own guidance. Revenue was essentially flat at $2.15 billion, net income rose 7% to $317 million, adjusted EBITDA grew 3% to $694 million, and free cash flow climbed 14% to $293 million. The company said self-pay subscriber additions improved by 45,000 from a year earlier, to roughly 5,000 net adds, with total subscribers holding at about 33 million. SiriusXM raised its full-year guidance for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow by $25 million each. Those are the numbers the new chief executive inherits.

A Quarter-Century at the Microphone

Witz joined SiriusXM in 2001 and rose through roles overseeing sales, marketing and distribution before becoming chief executive in December 2019. Greg Maffei, SiriusXM's board chairman, credited her tenure with expanding the company's in-car distribution deals with automakers, launching its newer "360L" streaming-enabled radios, building out a podcast division, and striking an exclusive advertising partnership with YouTube that let SiriusXM sell ads across YouTube's audio-listening audience. He said the company is now generating "its best core financial metrics in years," pointing to revenue growth and near-record free cash flow.

"Leading SiriusXM has been the most meaningful experience of my career. I am particularly proud of what our team has accomplished in strengthening the subscriber experience, expanding our advertising business, and unlocking greater value across our broader portfolio," Witz said in the companies' joint statement. "I firmly believe that SiriusXM is on a strong path and that now is the time for a transition."

Her exit comes as satellite radio, once a largely unchallenged category, competes directly with on-demand music services, YouTube and a fast-growing field of ad-supported podcast platforms for listening time, particularly inside cars, where SiriusXM has long held an advantage through factory-installed hardware.

From Vimeo to Tubi, and Now Satellite Radio

Sud, 43, has spent her career building and running streaming and video platforms rather than legacy broadcast businesses. She joined Tubi, the ad-supported streaming service Fox Corporation acquired in 2020, as chief executive in September 2023, and the company says she has grown its audience past 110 million monthly active users. Before that, she spent nearly a decade at Vimeo, rising from marketing roles to chief executive in 2017 and leading the company through its 2021 spinoff and public listing from IAC. Earlier in her career she worked in marketing and e-commerce roles at Amazon. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and an MBA from Harvard Business School, and she sits on the boards of Dolby Laboratories and the petition platform Change.org.

"Premium audio experiences will be more important than ever to the future of entertainment, and I believe SiriusXM can evolve to lead that future," Sud said in the announcement. Maffei, in the same release, called her "an outstanding CEO for SiriusXM," citing her experience scaling both subscription and advertising-supported businesses.

A Fragmented Audio Market

The change in leadership lands at a company that has already been reshaped once in recent years: Liberty Media, the holding company long chaired by media investor John Malone, completed a restructuring in 2024 that folded its tracking-stock interest in SiriusXM into a single, simplified share structure, consolidating control under the SiriusXM board that Maffei chairs. SiriusXM has also recently discussed a potential combination with the radio broadcaster iHeartMedia, according to prior reporting, underscoring the pressure traditional audio companies are under to find scale as listening habits shift toward streaming, podcasts and video platforms such as YouTube.

Sud's departure also leaves a vacancy atop Tubi, which has become an increasingly important piece of Fox Corporation's streaming strategy as the company builds out advertising-supported alternatives to subscription services. Fox had not named a successor as of Monday.

For SiriusXM's roughly 33 million subscribers, the day-to-day service is not expected to change immediately; executive transitions of this kind typically affect strategy and investment priorities over a longer horizon rather than programming decisions in the near term. Employees across SiriusXM's satellite radio, Pandora streaming and advertising technology units — which together the company says reach about 255 million monthly listeners when counting SiriusXM, Pandora and its ad-supported network — will report to Witz through year-end and then to Sud.

What's Next

Sud is expected to spend the next several weeks transitioning out of her role at Tubi while continuing her board duties at SiriusXM ahead of her January 1 start date. Witz will remain chief executive through the end of December, including SiriusXM's fourth-quarter and full-year 2026 earnings report, before shifting into her advisory role. Investors will be watching for any signals in that report, and in Sud's early public comments once she takes over, about whether the company plans to pursue consolidation such as the reported iHeartMedia talks, invest further in its advertising and podcast businesses, or recalibrate the cost discipline that drove this year's margin gains.