Naveen Chopra named Pandora interim CEO

NEW YORK , NY– Pandora announced on June 27 that Indian American executive Naveen Chopra has been named interim chief executive officer of the company.

Co-founder and CEO Tim Wintergreen, under intensifying competitive pressure from Spotify and Apple Music is relinquishing his position and stepping down from the company board.

Chopra, the chief financial officer, will remain in the interim CEO role as the company seeks a permanent replacement.

Pandora had 4.7 million paying subscribers at the end of March, while Spotify said it had more than 50 million.

Pandora and other streaming music services use algorithms to determine what listeners want to hear, based on the songs they like and do not like. Ads are played in the free version, but users can pay $5 per month to listen ad-free. Pandora makes most of its money from the free version, bringing in nearly $1.1 billion in ad revenue last year.

The company, based in Oakland, Calif., also said June 27 that Michael Herring has stepped down as president and that former MySpace and MTV Networks executive Jason Hirschhorn is joining Pandora’s board.

Prior to joining Pandora, Chopra served as interim CEO of TiVo Inc. A graduate of Stanford in computer science and economics, he also earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.