Spotify’s Jane Huxley promoted to EMEA, relocating to U.K.

Jane Huxley is climbing the ladder at Spotify, TIO can reveal.

Just 18 months after her arrival at the tech giant, the Australian executive is understood to have accepted a role to serve as Spotify’s Managing Director for EMEA (Europe / Middle East / Africa), which will see her relocate from Sydney to London in the weeks ahead.

Huxley, the former head and founder of Pandora’s now-closed Australian affiliate, joined Spotify in September 2017 as Managing Director of its Australia and New Zealand operations. Industry sources suggest she will continue to run the domestic business until a new Managing Director is appointed for the market-leading streamer while she transitions into her new, expanded role, which will see her take on duties across 44 markets that make up Spotify’s EMEA footprint.

With this new gig, Huxley will report into Spotify’s Global Head of Markets, Cecilia Qvist.

Spotify

During Huxley’s five years in charge of Pandora’s activities is in these parts, the company built a local listener base of 5 million registered users. Despite Huxley’s business smarts and the company’s strong early start, Pandora’s HQ ended the Australasian experiment in July 2017 to refocus on its North American business.

Spotify launched in Australia in May 2012 under then-chief Kate Vale. The company has tested some world-firsts in these parts, including its ad-skipping Active Media product, which rolled out in 2018.

ComScore data included in a corporate update last November shows Spotify reached 8 million monthly unique users in Australia, which means roughly 47% of the country’s smartphone users are on the platform.

There’s no news yet on who will succeed Huxley in Australia & New Zealand.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.