The first few months of 2024 have ushered in some interesting executive shakeups at the top media companies, with Spotify being the latest. The Swedish music streaming company announced yesterday (April 4) it had found a new chief financial officer, Christian Luiga, replacing Paul Vogel, who announced his departure last December.
Luiga comes from the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB, where he was both chief financial officer and CEO. According to Spotify’s press release, he will officially join the company in the third quarter of the year, while Ben Kung, vice president of financial planning and analysis, acts as the interim finance chief.
When Vogel said he was stepping down in December, Spotify was wrapping up the year with massive job cuts and laid off about 1,500 staffers (17 percent). It was the streaming company’s third layoff in 2023. At the same time, it had just turned a quarterly profit for the first time in more than a year. CEO Daniel Ek wrote in a memo that Spotify’s cost structure was “still too big” from overspending and overhiring in 2020 and 2021.
With the introduction of a new finance chief also comes a change in pricing, according to Bloomberg. Spotify plans to charge $1 to $2 additional per month in five markets, which include the U.K., Australia and Pakistan by the end of April. (It’s unclear what the other two markets are. Spotify hasn’t responded to an Observer inquiry at press time.) The U.S. won’t see a price increase for Spotify’s services until later in the year, according to Bloomberg. Spotify last increased prices in July 2023. An individual premium plan currently costs $11.
The price increase was due to the platform’s recent offering of audiobooks. Spotify began adding hundreds of thousands of free audiobooks for premium users last year, and now plans to isolate that feature to a super-premium tier. Users who don’t care to pay for audiobooks will have to subscribe to a new basic tier that will just offer music and podcasts.