London - Martin Lorentzon, a co-founder of Swedish music service Spotify, is stepping down from his role as chairman at the company after 10 years.
CEO and fellow co-founder Daniel Ek will take over the role in addition to his CEO position, a Spotify spokeswoman said in an e-mail. Lorentzon will become vice chairman, he said yesterday on his Twitter feed.
“I look forward to another 10 years at Spotify as vice chairman,” Lorentzon said.
Spotify, the world’s largest music-subscription service, last month surpassed 20 million paying customers.
With 100 million monthly users including its free, ad-supported product, Spotify is battling competition from Apple and Amazon.com while attempting to negotiate new licensing contracts with the world’s biggest record companies. The company, which generated more than $2 billion in revenue last year, is working toward an initial public offering by the end of 2017.
Earlier this year, Lorentzon joined venture capitalist and Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, former Finance Minister for Sweden Anders Borg and several other business leaders in signing an open letter calling for reforms in Sweden’s education, tax and housing industries, and warned that failure to do so could force businesses from the Nordic region’s biggest economy.
BLOOMBERG