On Monday, Spotify announced it would cut 6% of its staff as it adapted to the tough economic environment, following a wave of layoffs at other tech and entertainment companies.
As part of the move, the Swedish music-streaming giant said its chief content officer and head of advertising business, Dawn Ostroff, is stepping down.
A key architect of Spotify’s podcast strategy, Ostroff joined the company when the company made major audio and advertising investments, acquired production companies, and signed podcast deals with newsmakers and celebrities.
But the company’s aggressive investments in the podcast space are coming under more scrutiny amid a cooling economy.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said the layoffs reflected Spotify’s need to become more efficient.
Ek wrote in a blog post on Monday: “And in a difficult economic environment, efficiency becomes more important. So we decided to restructure our organization to increase efficiency, control costs and speed up decision-making.”
Ostroff joined Spotify in 2018 and oversaw the company’s rapid expansion into podcasting with shows featuring Kim Kardashian, Barack, Michelle Obama, Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Upon the transition, Spotify said he would make Ostroff a senior advisor.
Head of Content, Advertising and Licensing is Alex Norström, Chief Business Officer of Spotify. Ek said Norström and Chief Product Officer he will focus most of the engineering and product work under Gustav Soderström.
“Like many other leaders, I want to maintain a strong tailwind from the pandemic and believe our broader global business and reduced exposure to the impact of the slowdown in advertising will isolate us. “In hindsight, I was too ambitious to invest in earnings growth ahead of time.”
