Slicethepie commercial director and Pandora international MD Paul Brown is joining music streaming service Spotify as its first dedicated UK MD. Spotify last month announced 250,000 of its million users were in the UK and is now beginning to work with brands; the service is also available in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The company plans to launch on mobile and other platforms and is intent on becoming the glue that binds together consumers’ music experience.
Brown is very experienced in the music business – a lawyer, he worked on corporate development at Lovells and UBS Warburg before spending five years as business development director at Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG, working to develop revenue streams from new services and technologies. He joined US streaming service Pandora in 2006 to lead its international expansion but Pandora ended up abandoning international launches like its planned UK rollout, citing excessive royalty rates. He stayed on board and since last year has been helping fan-funding music site Slicethepie develop partnerships including its recently-announced Bebo deal. Paul tells us he will remain on Slicethepie’s board. Announcement.