Pandora CEO Tim Westergren has stepped down from the music streaming company, the company announced on Tuesday. Westergren will also step down from the company’s board of directors, and letting go of any and all official positions within the company that he started 17 years ago.
In the meantime, Pandora CFO Naveen Chopra will act as the interim CEO while the board looks for a new chief executive officer. Pandora also announced that Pandora president Mike Herring and CMO Nick Bartle would also step down.
Tim Leiweke, a Pandora board member, explained that it was Westergren’s decision to leave the company. “We support Tim’s desire to identify a new CEO for Pandora’s next stage,” Leiweke said.
In a statement, Westergren explained how Pandora is ready to take the company to the next level. “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.”
It is not the second time Westergren has stepped down as the CEO of Pandora. After an early role as the CEO first launched in the early 2000s, Tim Westergren stepped down. That said, the company has launched several new products including an on-demand streaming service, and investment by Sirius XM radio.