Spotify’s stock fell after the company revealed on Tuesday that founder Daniel Ek would be leaving his position as CEO to take on the role of executive chairman. According to the streaming behemoth based in Stockholm, Ek will be succeeded by two lieutenants who will serve as co-CEOs: Alex Norström, Chief Business Officer, and Gustav Söderström, Chief Product and Technology Officer.
On January 1st, the two, who are now co-presidents, will start their new positions and report to Ek. According to a news release from Spotify, the change “formalises” the company’s operations since 2023, with Söderström and Norström primarily in charge of operational execution and strategic development.
In an online question-and-answer session following the announcement, Ek said his new role would not be a ceremonial one that investors with a “US perspective” might expect. In Europe, an executive chairman is typically “quite active in the business” and acts as a representative to “certain stakeholders” such as governments, he said.
Ek said he still sees growth opportunities, including a “huge part of the world that’s really not accustomed to streaming” stretching from Asia to Africa, as well as new technology including artificial intelligence. I’m gonna keep pushing for us to look around the corner, stay focused on the long term,” he said.
Since Ek founded Spotify about two decades ago, the platform’s rise has helped to transform the music business and paved the way for modern streaming. Spotify now has more than 700 million subscribers and a library of over 100 million songs, 7 million podcast titles, and 350,000 audiobooks.
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