OSTROFF LEAVES SPOTIFY IN REORG

Dawn Ostroff, who has overseen content and advertising at Spotify since 2018, is leaving the streaming company as part of a reorganization that will see a 6% reduction in staff.

Chief Freemium Business Officer Alex Norström and Chief Research & Development Officer Gustav Söderström will serve as co-presidents.

Ostroff, who was chief content & advertising business officer, will assume the role of senior advisor during the transition.

Spotify will be cutting about 600 jobs. Per reports, the company estimates it will incur as much as €45m in severance-related charges.

In a memo to employees CEO Daniel Ek posted on Spotify's blog, he wrote: “We still spend far too much time syncing on slightly different strategies, which slows us down. And in a challenging economic environment, efficiency takes on greater importance. So, in an effort to drive more efficiency, control costs and speed up decision-making, I have decided to restructure our organization.

“As you are well aware, over the last few months we’ve made a considerable effort to rein in costs, but it simply hasn’t been enough. So while it is clear this path is the right one for Spotify, it doesn’t make it any easier—especially as we think about the many contributions these colleagues have made.

“Like many other leaders, I hoped to sustain the strong tailwinds from the pandemic and believed that our broad global business and lower risk to the impact of a slowdown in ads would insulate us. In hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth.”

Ek noted that during Ostroff’s tenure the company grew podcast content by 40 times and more than doubled its advertising revenue, to €1.5b.

Spotify will announce financial results for 2022 on 1/31.