Spotify’s Head of Audiobooks Is Returning to Startup Space

Nir Zicherman, the executive overseeing Spotify’s audiobooks expansion, is leaving the company at the start of October after more than four years as an executive at the audio giant.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Zicherman — currently the the vp and global head of audiobooks at Spotify — said he is departing to return to his “entrepreneurial roots with a new project in the startup space.” Zicherman first joined Spotify in 2019 after the company acquired Anchor, the podcasting platform that Zicherman co-founded with Michael Mignano, as part of Spotify’s podcast product division. He was later tapped to oversee Spotify’s growing audiobooks business, which formally launched last September with an à la carte model but has faced setbacks in user adoption in part due to Apple’s App Store policies around in-app purchases.

“After a total of 9 years working across Spotify and Anchor, I’ve decided that it’s time for the next chapter in my career,” Zicherman, whose last day is Sept. 30, told THR in an email. “I’m extremely proud of the work the team has done, and now that we’ve successfully established a foundation, I’m excited about what’s next for audiobooks at Spotify — but I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and on a personal level, I’m excited to be getting back to the startup world. I felt that now was a good time to begin that transition, as the team at Spotify is set up well for success in our future work.”

As Spotify begins the search for Zicherman’s successor to lead the company’s audiobooks product strategy, Spotify’s vp business affairs, David Kaefer, will continue overseeing the business side of the audiobooks expansion.

Zicherman, whose upcoming departure was first reported by The Verge, is the latest in a string of podcast-adjacent executives at Spotify to leave. In the past year, those exits have included Courtney Holt, a major dealmaker for Spotify’s podcasting expansion; Mignano, the Anchor co-founder who left to become a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners; and Dawn Ostroff, the chief content and ad business officer.

In addition to Zicherman, upcoming executive departures include Max Cutler, the company’s top creator partnerships executive and founder of the Spotify-acquired podcast studio Parcast, who is set to leave in May. In announcing his decision to leave in February, Cutler told staff that he was similarly leaving Spotify to “return to [his] entrepreneurial roots” and launch his own venture, though has not yet shared additional details on that business.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.