Spotify’s longtime Chief Government Daniel Ek mentioned Tuesday that he’s stepping down from his place subsequent 12 months and can turn out to be government chairman.
Ek co-founded the Swedish audio firm in 2006 and has served as CEO for the reason that starting.
His imaginative and prescient was to discover a solution to battle towards music piracy by providing a platform the place customers may pay to stream music.
Spotify has grown to greater than 700 million customers and has expanded into new classes past music, together with podcasts and audiobooks. Spotify has a big workplace in downtown Los Angeles.
Gustav Söderström, chief product and know-how officer; and Alex Norström, chief enterprise officer, who’ve served as the corporate’s co-presidents since 2023, will transition to co-CEOs on Jan. 1.
In a video posted on LinkedIn, Ek mentioned that it was the precise time to make the management transition, including that Spotify has been worthwhile for greater than a 12 months and that his co-presidents have been “doing a tremendous job.” He famous the executives made key contributions to the corporate, from audiobooks to scaling video podcasts.
“Over the previous few years, I’ve turned over a big a part of the day-to-day administration and strategic path of Spotify to Alex and Gustav, who’ve formed the corporate from our earliest days and are actually greater than able to information our subsequent part,” Ek mentioned in an announcement. “This transformation merely matches titles to how we already function.”
Beneath Ek’s management, Spotify has weathered a number of controversies and protests from artists.
Earlier this 12 months, Ek was criticized by some musicians for main a funding spherical of practically $700 million to protection firm Helsing. Some artists pulled their music from Spotify in protest.
Whereas Spotify paid greater than $10 billion in 2024 to the music business, some artists have complained that they don’t gather sufficient cash from the streaming platform.
Ek mentioned he’ll stay as government chairman and give attention to technique, capital allocation and regulatory efforts. Söderström and Norström will report back to Ek and work with the board of administrators.
Söderström mentioned in a name on Tuesday with traders that his core tasks are product and know-how, whereas Norström oversees enterprise, markets and content material.
“Alex is deeply and educated about product and I’m very occupied with enterprise, so we run this as a single group, our joint groups collectively,” Söderström mentioned. “So in follow, not that a lot will change from how we run the businesses.”
Spotify inventory was buying and selling at $687.60, down about 6% on Tuesday morning.
