Tag: managing director

5 Questions (and Answers) with Federica Tremolada, Managing Director, Spotify Southern and Eastern Europe

April 26, 2021

Federica Tremolada joined Spotify exactly two years ago as Managing Director for Southern & Eastern Europe. This diverse region is made up of 26 countries, including big established markets like Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Poland, as well as a number of fast-growing newer markets, like Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, and the Balkans. From the start, Federica knew there wouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach for her markets. 

At Spotify, Federica has combined her passion for audio (she’s been a musician since a young age) with her experience in international media and technology. Her background in negotiating and managing complex international media partnerships led her to have a deep understanding of different business models at Spotify and how to fit them into the puzzle that is Southern and Eastern Europe. 

Recently, Federica was honored on Billboard’s 2021 International Power Players list. For the Record took the opportunity to check in with Federica to hear about what she’s been up to—and what she looks forward to down the road.

What’s Spotify’s ultimate vision and goal in Southern and Eastern Europe (SEE)?

Our mission at Spotify is to unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. The translation of our mission into the 26 markets of the Southern and Eastern European region is to enable this unique connection between artists and fans at a local level by providing the most relevant content, a highly sophisticated personalized experience, and the best product fit to local artists, users, and advertisers. 

If I think about some of the most recent campaigns we’ve launched, they had an enormous impact both locally and globally. As an example, our Sanremo 2021 campaign was a huge success! During the five days of the popular Italian musical festival, the official playlist was the third-most-listened-to playlist globally, just behind Today’s Top Hits and RapCaviar. 

What are some of your greatest achievements at Spotify to date?

One of the biggest achievements came from better understanding the diversity and priorities of all my 26 markets with high growth potential, both in terms of new monthly active users and subscribers. Being more local means providing an adequate type of support to creators and being culturally relevant for all our users regardless where they come from. This translated into multiple initiatives we launched in the region: the localization of Spotify for Artists in most of the relevant languages, the launch of an Original & Exclusive strategy for podcasts starting from our top markets that brought an Emmy-like award in Spain (Premios Ondas) for XRey, a bigger and better approach to our local marketing campaigns, artists’ promotion at a larger scale (like Sfera Ebbasta, C Tangana, ROSALÍA, or Taco Hemingway), and last but not the least, the creation of a team that could facilitate and accelerate this type of support. 

What do you view as the key headwinds that you and the region face?

The real challenge is managing complexity at a large scale. We need to make sure we stay competitive in our most mature markets by acquiring new audiences, refreshing our original and exclusive content slate at a stable pace, owning local music genres as much as we do for global trends (for example, Flamenco Flow in Spain or Disco Polo in Poland), and personalizing the Premium experience in every country. 

At the same time, it’s important not to lose sight of everything happening in countries at an early stage of growth or those still on a fast growth trajectory by fueling that growth with the right amount of resources and investments. We’ve never invested so much in local initiatives in SEE as we’re doing in 2021.

Within your market, what would you say are the most exciting or interesting trends that you’re seeing?

Podcasts are definitely one of the most interesting trends that also had a huge acceleration during the pandemic. Italy and Spain were among the two markets that quarantined first in early March 2020, and during those first few weeks podcast listening went up in those markets. This format is particularly loved by millennials and Gen Z users who identify podcasts as a more humanizing technology and also a better way to fuel self-discovery. In order to provide high-quality content around these topics, we launched three new shows in Spain (X-Rey, AM, and El Rey del Cachopo), plus three originals (Tutto Sanremo ma dura meno, L’Educazione Responsabile, and Complottisti Domestici), and one exclusive format (Demoni Urbani) in Italy in the last few months.

If we took a look at your recently played list, what would we find right now?

I love true crime in general for podcasts, so both Demoni Urbani and the recently launched El Rey del Cachopo are among my favourite titles, along with some of the shows we launched globally, like Renegades: Born in the USA or Dare to Lead with Brené Brown. From a music perspective, I love discovering new hits that I can add to my library, so Release Radar and New Music Friday are my favorite playlists during my spare time.

Stream one of Federica’s favorite Spanish podcasts, El Rey del Cachopo.

5 Questions (and Answers) with David Sang Wook Park, Spotify Korea Managing Director

March 23, 2021

In 2014, Spotify debuted our first K-Pop playlist, K-Pop Daebak, on the platform. From that day on, we’ve served as a global stage and partner for Korean artists and helped them introduce their music to the world. We doubled down on that commitment in 2015 with the launch of our K-Pop hub, enabling us to further introduce Korean music—including K-Pop, hip-hop, indie, OST, and R&B—to fans globally. 

Then, this February, Spotify launched in South Korea, creating an opportunity to amplify Korean musicians and spread their music to listeners like never before. And that opportunity expanded even more when, just 50 days later, Spotify became available across 80+ more markets for a total of 178.

For the Record caught up with David Park, Spotify Korea Managing Director, to talk more about why now was the right time to launch in South Korea, his own background supporting content creators, and Spotify’s mission to connect artists to fans in Korea and across the world. 

It’s been 50 days since Spotify launched in South Korea. What are some initial reactions you can share?

We’re taking into account feedback both from listeners and artists, constantly working to improve and innovate our service. From the artist community, we have generally received a warm welcome and positive feedback that our launch has activated the local music streaming market. We’re hoping that more listeners will be able to connect with a more diverse range of artists and music genres, both in Korea and around the world. Our team on the ground is deeply committed to this. 

From listeners, we continue to get extremely positive feedback on our unmatched personalization and discovery technologies. They’re seeing a very high level of music-related editorial input, powered by data and the depth of our algorithmic machine learning. We already see how listeners are discovering new artists and music, expanding their listening range and experience.  We believe in Spotify as more than a listening platform, but as a tool that brings the world of audio to you.

Tell us about your professional background prior to Spotify. How did that prepare you for your current role?

I’ve worked in the intersection of content media and IT/tech throughout my career, most recently founding a startup and setting up a business in Korea for a global company. One of the highlights during my career was definitely fostering and nurturing the video creator community and ecosystem in the APAC region. Helping Korean creators boost their presence not just in Korea but around the world—through the support of tools and data—was one of the key experiences that helped set me up for this role. There was one fact prevalent throughout the different roles I had taken: that content is king.

Spotify has been avid in serving as K-Pop’s bridge to the world years before launch. Can you talk about the timing of this launch? Why was now the right time?

While Spotify’s been very active in serving Korea’s music streaming market, it is a highly mature, unique, and complex one. With that, we had to invest an immense amount of time, resources, and research years before the launch. In every country we enter, we have to take market specificities into consideration and align with the local industry. 

All in all, building up a strong foundation to our long-term vision in Korea took some time, and we’re taking a step-by-step, hyper-sophisticated approach by considering market specificities and all relevant stakeholders. Our focus is on democratizing audio and music in the long run, and helping to accelerate the growth of Korea’s entire music streaming ecosystem, benefitting creators, labels, distributors, and fans. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. 

How will Spotify support Korean artists, both through launch and going forward?

We’re now hoping to take Korean music and artists’ global popularity to another level. Just recently we saw a variety of different artists, such as ROSÉ, DPR IAN, SHINee, Epik High, CHUNG HA, and more landing in the top 10 of the global Spotify debut charts. Korea’s music industry has been the epicenter of new cultural trends and music for many years, and it’s important for us to embed even further into this unique market, forging closer relationships with even more artists and labels and connecting them with fans across the globe. An example is our Spotify for Artists master classes, which we’ve proactively held for labels and artists so that they can better leverage our data and tools alongside our music team’s guidance and support. We want to empower them to connect with even larger audiences—both local and global.

What’s Spotify’s ultimate vision and goal in Korea?

Our ultimate goal is to provide the best audio experience to our listeners in Korea, and to continue to connect artists and fans on a scale that has never before existed. For listeners, we are committed to creating an environment in which they can enjoy a personalized experience tailored for their lifestyle, as well as diverse new content from all over the world. 

We see ourselves as a catalyst for additional growth in the market, with discovery of new artists and music being a key strength. We’re proud of that and are actively refining our algorithms to enable even more fan discoveries of new artists each month. We’re also confident that there is ample room for Korea’s music market to grow further as listeners’ audio and music consumption habits transform gradually. The shift has already begun. It’s only a matter of time and we’re working hard to speed things up. As our CEO, Daniel Ek, mentioned at Stream On, “It’s just the beginning.”

Ready to discover music and playlists for yourself? Check out David’s top working playlists—Lo-Fi Beats, Lo-Fi Cafe, and Lo-Fi House—or one of his new favorite playlists, In The K-Indie. “Recently, youra is a new gem I discovered through it. There’s just so much musical talent like youra in Korea that needs to be heard both in Korea and globally.”

Spotify Celebrates Women in the Music Business in Australia

November 27, 2019

Allies: Bring One, Be One, Meet Many. That was the theme of the inclusive Spotify gathering held on Monday, November 25, to celebrate women in the Australian music business.

Hosted ahead of the ARIA Music Awards in Australia (a pivotal industry and cultural moment for the country), the event was an opportunity to bring together and celebrate the achievements of women in music, as well as recognize important support from their allies.

6 Questions (And Answers) with Mia Nygren, Managing Director, Spotify Latin America

July 23, 2019

Artists who emerge in Latin America often catch fire around the Spanish-speaking world—and beyond—thanks to streaming (just look at “Despacito”). In the six years since Spotify’s launch in the region, Latin America has quickly become one of Spotify’s fastest-growing music and podcast markets. 

We sat down with Mia Nygren, our Managing Director of Latin America, to learn how streaming spread so rapidly throughout the region, transformed its music industry, and then began to influence the rest of the world. 

Tell us about your professional background, particularly your work in the music industry prior to joining Spotify. How did that prepare you for your current role?

I have seen and been a part of the massive transformation that the music marketplace has experienced in the past 20 years. After university, my first job as a market research consultant for Nordic internet companies brought me to Spain. Then in 2001, I joined a Swedish mobile music creator and distributor of ringtones. It was pretty clear that the technology would improve with time and that labels and publishers would enter the space. From there, I went to Universal Music Group (Spain and Portugal) in 2003 and lived through the sharp decline in physical sales and the consistent growth in digital distribution. After nine years at the label, I moved back to my hometown, Stockholm, to join Spotify.

My time at Universal was invaluable in so many ways, but was particularly helpful at first in driving the Spotify business forward through partnerships with labels—my primary responsibility as Business Development Director in Europe. Moving into my current role, a deep understanding of the music industry and how to identify innovative growth opportunities through content was also key—especially in a part of the world where music consumption is through the roof.