A Spotify executive who signed Harry and Meghan to a multi-million-pound podcast deal is leaving the company as it cuts hundreds of jobs.
Dawn Ostroff, chief content officer, was the driving force behind the streaming company’s move into podcasts.
She secured the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archetypes series in a deal thought to be worth £20million – but announcing around 600 job cuts and a management shake-up, chief executive Daniel Ek yesterday said Ostroff has ‘decided to depart Spotify’.
‘Like many other leaders, I hoped to sustain the strong tailwinds from the pandemic, and I believed our broad global business and lower risk to the impact of an ad slowdown would insulate us,’ Ek said. In retrospect, I was overly optimistic in investing ahead of our revenue growth.’
According to the company, Ostroff contributed to a 40-fold increase in podcast content by signing major contracts with Harry and Meghan, as well as the Obamas.
In recent months, the company stated that cost-cutting efforts had failed to shift the dial and that more drastic changes, such as ‘fundamentally changing how we operate at the top,’ were required to boost business.
Spotify’s shares have also been impacted by rising consumer spending pressures and a broader tech sell-off, with shares down more than 70% since February 2021 highs, erasing roughly £40 billion from its value.
