Atomos Appoints Peter Barber as CEO Amid Product Expansion and Market Pressure

Industry News

by Nino LeitnerMay 6^th, 2025

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Atomos, the Australian video tech company best known for their portable monitor-recorders, has announced a major leadership change as it continues to navigate market turbulence and broaden its product strategy. Peter Barber, who has served as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Board Director since February 2024, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective May 3. He succeeds Jeromy Young, the company’s co-founder and longtime CEO, who will remain involved as a Non-Executive Director.

Barber, a seasoned executive with over 30 years in the industry and a co-founder of Blackmagic Design, steps into the CEO role at a time of transition for Atomos. His appointment comes after a period of intense restructuring, strategic repositioning, and increasing pressure from shareholders and the stock market. Atomos stock has experienced significant volatility over the past two years, a reflection of both global economic uncertainty and investor concerns about the company’s leadership and future direction.

In a statement, Atomos Chairman James Joughin praised Barber’s impact since joining the company:

“Peter’s industry knowledge and operational experience have already proven invaluable. We’re confident his leadership will drive Atomos through its next phase of growth.”

Barber acknowledged the challenges ahead — including geopolitical tensions and U.S. tariffs — but highlighted the company’s renewed momentum. “We’ve spent the past year rebuilding and restructuring,” he said. “Atomos is now a more agile, resilient organization with a strong foundation to expand into new markets.”

Expanding beyond recorders

Under Barber’s operational leadership, Atomos has moved decisively to diversify their portfolio beyond their flagship Ninja and Shogun monitor-recorders, which arguably is a business in decline considering the ever-increasing in-camera recording capabilities of cameras (with ProRes RAW and Blackmagic RAW becoming staple codecs of in-camera recording). At NAB 2025, in his role as COO, Peter Barber introduced us to a suite of new products that mark a major expansion into hardware ecosystems and software services, including the Atomosphere cloud platform, A-EyePTZ cameras, the Atomos TX/RX wireless system, and StudioSonic headphones. CineD interviewed Barber during NAB, and our full coverage can be found here.

This broadened strategy represents a key shift from Atomos’ previous identity as a monitor-recorder company to a more diversified media technology brand targeting everything from production to cloud post workflows. It’s a move designed to reduce dependency on a maturing recorder market and align with industry trends toward integrated ecosystems and software-hardware convergence.

A complicated legacy

Jeromy Young, who co-founded Atomos in 2010, was instrumental in shaping the company’s identity and reputation for innovation. During his tenure, Atomos products helped democratize professional monitoring and recording for independent filmmakers and broadcasters alike.

However, Young’s leadership came under scrutiny in recent years. In late 2022, he was suspended from his CEO role amid internal governance investigations and mounting financial pressures. The company later underwent significant executive and board-level changes, with Young returning in 2024 during a transitional phase. While no formal charges were brought, these events eroded investor confidence and placed Atomos under a microscope from both the press and shareholders. We spoke to Jeromy Young in a very open conversation in September 2024 during IBC, which you can watch in case you missed it.

In his farewell statement as CEO, Young reflected on the company’s journey: “I’m proud of what we’ve achieved and grateful for everyone who supported our vision. I brought Peter into Atomos knowing his experience would be key to taking us forward.”

Looking ahead

The new Atomos CEO, Peter Barber, now leads the company at a critical inflection point. The company’s success will depend on their ability to execute on a diversified strategy while regaining investor trust and stabilizing its share performance. With a broader product pipeline in development, Atomos is clearly aiming to redefine their role in the content creation ecosystem.

Whether that reinvention translates into market gains remains to be seen, but with Barber at the helm, the company is signaling that their ambition goes far beyond recorders.

After meeting with Barber at NAB for the interview, I got the impression of a hands-on executive who knows his products, and maybe even more importantly, seems great with people. The team here at CineD certainly would love to see Atomos thrive again, because as a company, they have undoubtedly contributed a lot to the democratization of high-quality video recording on a budget.

Will Atomos and Blackmagic Design ever cooperate?

While still unlikely, Barber’s appointment as Atomos CEO might make the possibility of a collaboration between Atomos and Blackmagic Design a little more likely. Famously, Grant Petty sued Jeromy Young – a former Blackmagic Design employee – after alleged misuse of Blackmagic’s confidential information in order to make a marketing plan on how the then-new Atomos could potentially outperform Blackmagic Design. Peter Barber is a co-founder of Blackmagic Design, but we are not aware of the status of his relationship to Grant Petty. If the two could push personal grievances and history aside, there is a lot to be gained by users: After all, there is little benefit to having ProRes RAW (developed by Apple in conjunction with Atomos) and Blackmagic RAW exist in parallel, with limited compatibility on various NLEs.

What do you think of Peter Barber’s appointment as Atomos CEO, and Jeromy Young stepping aside? Let us know in the comments.