Spotify stated Tuesday that founder Daniel Ek is stepping down as CEO to change into the manager chair.
The Stockholm-based streaming large stated Ek will probably be changed by two lieutenants who will change into co-CEOs: chief product and expertise officer Gustav Söderström and chief enterprise officer Alex Norström. The pair, who’re additionally at present co-presidents, will transition into their new jobs on 1 January.
Spotify stated in a press launch that the transfer “formalizes” how Spotify has been working since 2023, with Söderström and Norström largely main strategic improvement and operational execution.
Ek stated that he had already “turned over a big a part of the day-to-day administration and strategic path” to the pair.
“This variation merely matches titles to how we already function,” he stated. As government chairman, Ek stated he’ll concentrate on Spotify’s “lengthy arc”.
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In an internet query and reply session following the announcement, Ek stated his new function wouldn’t be a ceremonial one which buyers with a “US perspective” may count on.
In Europe, an government chair is often “fairly lively within the enterprise” and acts as a consultant to “sure stakeholders” similar to governments, he stated.
Ek stated he nonetheless sees development alternatives, together with a “enormous a part of the world that’s actually not accustomed to streaming” stretching from Asia to Africa, in addition to new expertise together with synthetic intelligence.
“I’m gonna hold pushing for us to go searching the nook, keep centered on the long run,” he stated.
Since Ek based Spotify about twenty years in the past, the platform’s rise has helped reworked the music enterprise and paved the best way for contemporary streaming. Spotify now has greater than 700 million subscribers and a library of greater than 100m songs, 7m podcast titles and 350,000 audiobooks.