The Bela Bajaria Adieu

For a decade, Bela Bajaria helped decide what much of the world watched. On October 15, Netflix announced she was leaving as Chief Content Officer, a day after the company cut about 1,000 jobs, roughly 6% of its workforce and its deepest cuts since 2022.

A surprise departure

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos thanked Bajaria for “a decade of dedication, innovation, creativity, and leadership.” Netflix named Peter Rice, the former Disney and Fox executive, as her successor, effective October 26. Rice previously oversaw Disney’s cable channels, news programming and coverage of major live sports. He will run Netflix’s global content organisation, covering scripted and unscripted series, film and live events.

Netflix described the move as a departure, not a firing. Some outlets have used harsher language. The timing, one day after the layoffs, led many to read it as part of a wider shake-up. Film chief Dan Lin has since left too, along with other senior film and television executives, according to a prominent media outlet..

Why now

Netflix has not given a reason. Reporting points to pressure on the business. TheWrap said overall engagement rose only 2% in the first half of 2026. Deadline noted that Netflix has not had a big “zeitgeisty” hit in more than a year. CNBC reported that the shares are down more than 20% this year. TheWrap also read the change as a pivot back to Netflix’s film and television core and to rebuilding ties with talent.

An unlikely route to the top

Bajaria’s path was unusual. She was born in London in 1970 to parents of Gujarati descent and spent part of her childhood in London and Zambia. Her family settled on the US West Coast, and she joined her parents in Los Angeles in 1979. As a teenager she worked as a cashier. After school she won the Miss LA India and Miss India USA pageants, then Miss India Worldwide in 1991.

She graduated from California State University, Long Beach, in 1995 with a communications degree. In 1996 she took an assistant’s job at CBS in the movies and miniseries department, reading scripts and studying old films in the network’s tape library. After a brief stint at Warner Bros. Television, she returned to CBS in 1997 and rose to senior vice president. In 2011 she joined Universal Television as an executive vice president and soon became president of the studio. There she worked on hits such as Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which later found its audience on Netflix.

Building Netflix’s global slate

Netflix hired her in 2016 to oversee its scripted and unscripted series. In 2019 she took over local-language series, the push that helped make non-English shows a global habit. In 2020 she became global head of television.

In January 2023, Reed Hastings moved to executive chairman and Greg Peters became co-CEO. Bajaria was named Chief Content Officer in the same reshuffle.

She has been credited with overseeing flagship titles including Squid Game, Bridgerton, Stranger Things and Wednesday, and films such as KPop Demon Hunters. She also led a push into live events, including Christmas Day NFL games, WWE programming and the Jake Paul–Mike Tyson boxing match. Her honours included a place on the 2022 Time 100 list.

What comes next

Rice inherits a company that must justify its scale to Wall Street while keeping its slate strong. Whether Bajaria’s exit marks a change in strategy or a change in leadership alone is the question the industry is now asking. For Bajaria, who rose from a cash register in Los Angeles to the top of the world’s biggest streamer, the next move has not been announced.