Westergren Steps Down, Chopra Steps Up

Pandora makes it official — Tim Westergren is indeed stepping down as CEO. While the board of directors undertakes a search for a new CEO, Pandora CFO Naveen Chopra (below, left) has been named interim CEO. With these changes, Westergren will also no longer be a member of the Pandora Board of Directors. At the same time, Pandora announced the appointment of Jason Hirschhorn to its board, filling a recently vacated seat and also revealed that President Mike Herring and CMO Nick Bartle are leaving the company.

Pandora board member Tim Leiweke remarked, “On behalf of the entire board, I would like to thank Tim for his vision and his many years of leadership that have created one of the most recognized brands in streaming music today. Tim stepped in to be CEO at a critical time for the company and was quickly able to reset relations with the major labels, launch our on-demand service, reconstitute the management team and refortify our balance sheet by securing an investment from Sirius XM. We support Tim’s desire to identify a new CEO for Pandora’s next stage.”

Westergren said, “I am incredibly proud of the company we have built. We invented a whole new way of enjoying and discovering music and in doing so, forever changed the listening experience for millions. I came back to the CEO role last year to drive transformation across the business. We accomplished far more than we anticipated. We rebuilt Pandora’s relationships with the music industry; launched a fantastic Premium on-demand service, and brought a host of tech innovations to our advertising business. With these in place, plus a strengthened balance sheet, I believe Pandora is perfectly poised for its next chapter.”

Hirschhorn (left) is CEO of the ReDEF Group, a digital content curation company that he founded in 2013. Before that he was Chief Product Officer and Co-President of MySpace, Inc. and President of Sling Media, Inc. Leiweke commented, “Jason is a uniquely talented individual who brings highly relevant consumer media experience to our board and will lend valuable counsel as we focus on driving long-term value for our shareholders. With this new addition to the board, as well as our recently announced partnership with SiriusXM and our sale of Ticketfly, we have added significant intellectual and capital resources to Pandora, and we are confident that the company is in a better position than ever to capture an increasing share of the music listening audience.”