Spotify Podcast Chief Sahar Elhabashi Is Leaving the Company

Sahar Elhabashi, VP and head of the podcast business at Spotify, will leave the streaming giant at the end of 2024 after six years at the company.

Elhabashi and her boss, Alex Norström, co-president and chief business officer, shared news of Elhabashi’s exit in memos to Spotify’s podcast organization Wednesday. Currently, she has no plans to join another company. Spotify has launched an internal and external search for a replacement.

In the interim, Roman Wasenmüller, who currently helps lead Spotify’s podcast efforts internationally, will lead the podcast group. According to Spotify, he has been heavily involved in the push into video podcasts, which have been growing rapidly in recent years.

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In addition, Emma Vaughn, currently head of advertising business development and partnerships, will assume leadership of global advertising and content business development for podcats. Shilpa Rao will continue leading Spotify’s podcast business affairs and contract operations team, reporting to Vaughn.

During Elhabashi’s tenure, she played a key role in boosting podcast listening on Spotify, growing it from an audience of less than 10 million to more than 150 million today.

Elhabashi also oversaw layoffs across Spotify’s podcast teams. As part of recalibrating the business, she led a shift in Spotify’s strategy away from platform-exclusive pacts with top podcasters — including Joe Rogan (of “The Joe Rogan Experience”) and Alex Cooper (host of “Call Her Daddy”) — to broaden distribution of the shows. That was because those exclusive deals were underperforming on ad sales and also because any individual creator “obviously wants to be on many different platforms and wants to have as big of an audience as possible,” CEO Daniel Ek told analysts in February.

According to Spotify, podcasts remain on track for full-year profitability in 2024. In Q1, Spotify’s podcast ad revenue grew faster than music, driven by “significant growth in impressions sold” across original and licensed podcasts and the Spotify Audience Network, which was partially offset by softer pricing, the company said. 

Elhabashi joined the company in December 2018 as VP of content and assumed oversight of the podcast business following the exit of Dawn Ostroff, formerly chief content and advertising business officer, in January 2023. Elhabashi previously had been interim head of Condé Nast Entertainment after Ostroff left CNE to join Spotify.