Lauren Wirtzer-Seawood has exited her position as Chief Content material & Advertising Officer at SoundCloud, the exec has confirmed to MBW.
Wirtzer-Seawood joined SoundCloud in June 2021, employed by then-CEO, Michael Weismann.
Previous to becoming a member of SoundCloud, she was the President of well-capitalized distributor and providers firm, UnitedMasters, the place she labored for 2 years.
Earlier than becoming a member of UnitedMasters, she was Head of Music Partnerships at Instagram (between 2015 and 2019), and held roles at firms together with Beyoncé’s Parkwood Leisure and online game agency Zynga.
At New York-headquartered SoundCloud, Wirtzer-Seawood was broadly thought to be one of many firm’s most influential executives working below Eliah Seton, who was promoted from President to CEO of the agency in March.
Wirtzer-Seawood informed MBW: “In the end, I got here to [SoundCloud] to assist remodel the corporate and set it on a path towards success.
“After practically two years of constructing groups, processes, and priorities – and hiring some actually stellar individuals – it was time to maneuver on. I’ve little doubt that Eliah, the exec workforce and the board will drive large success for SoundCloud within the very close to future.”
A supply at SoundCloud informed MBW: “Lauren got here to SoundCloud to assist evolve/remodel from an open audio platform to a music neighborhood.
“Now that the corporate is firmly on that path and he or she employed an unbelievable workforce to take it into the longer term, she determined it was the appropriate time to go away.”
“After practically two years of constructing groups, processes, and priorities – and hiring some actually stellar individuals – it was time to maneuver on.”
Lauren Wirtzer-Seawood, SoundCloud
Final week, SoundCloud introduced that it had struck a brand new licensing settlement with indie music group, Merlin.
The deal provides a number of the world’s largest impartial labels and their artists the chance to earn royalties from SoundCloud by way of the platform’s “fan-powered royalties” (FPR, aka user-centric) payout mannequin.
Eliah Seton, Chief Govt Officer of SoundCloud, stated on the time: “At SoundCloud, we’re dedicated to being artist-first. The FPR mannequin makes streaming royalties extra equitable, helps artists profit straight from their followers, and opens the door for extra significant fan-to-artist connection.
“I’m thrilled that Merlin’s extraordinary neighborhood of impartial labels and distributors, and by extension their artists, will now profit.”
The “fan-powered” mannequin was on MBW’s lips final week, following the information that AI music-making device, Boomy, had seemingly been utilized by streaming fraudsters to create tracks that had been then uploaded to Spotify and performed by way of stream farms.
A change away from the dominant “professional rata” streaming payout mannequin and in direction of “fan-powered”, say the latter mannequin’s advocates, would neuter a lot of the present business incentives fuelling streaming fraud.
SoundCloud right this moment (Could 8) introduced its newest innovation: a ‘Followers’ device that permits artists to straight message their superfans on the platform.
In February 2023, SoundCloud expanded its artist providers enterprise globally by getting into right into a three way partnership with Jax Jones’ and Dan Stacey’s UK-based, dance-focused file label, WUGD (What You Gonna Do) Ltd.
That constructed on an artist-signing three way partnership with Stable Basis, the administration and artistic providers arm of QC Media Holdings.Music Enterprise Worldwide