Rob Harvey, Head of Label Relations at Spotify in the US, has left the streaming service amid a handful of lay-offs at the company, MBW understands.
The mini-restructure is the result of a merger between Spotify’s Artist & Label Services and its Artist Marketing teams.
The newly-unified division will now come under the banner of Artist & Label Marketing, headed up by Dave Rocco.
In addition to Harvey, two New York-based employees are believed to have been let go as part of the process, including the well-liked Eric Johnson, Manager of Artist & Label Services.
The news follows the departure of Kevin Brown, who left his role as Spotify’s Head of Artist & Label Services UK and International in December, and Chief Content Officer Stefan Blom who left in January.
It’s been merely 14 months since MBW broke the news that Harvey, a former Universal Music exec, was joining Spotify in the US to head up label relations.
Harvey had been VP of Top 40 at Republic & Island Records since 2013 – a position he accepted after a near-14-year tenure in radio promotions at fellow UMG label group Interscope Geffen A&M.
He joined at the same time as Dave Rocco, who was appointed Spotify’s Head Of Artist Marketing in New York after spending four years as EVP, Music Creative Director at advertising giant Deutsch.
Rocco and Harvey were hired as part of a new industry relations team being put together by Troy Carter, who joined Spotify as Global Head Of Creator Services in June 2016.
The change of personnel comes as Spotify inches closer towards its direct listing, which was reportedly filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the beginning of January.
A few days later, Spotify revealed that it had added 10m subscribers to its service in the past five months – enough to push it beyond the 70m paying customer milestone.
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