Spotify Explains Lee Brown’s Exit as Advertising Chief: ‘We’re Behind On the Plan’

Lee Brown, Spotify’s longtime vp and global head of advertising, is leaving the company to become chief revenue officer at DoorDash. 

Starting in late August, Brown will oversee revenue across DoorDash’s restaurant, retail, grocery and emerging business lines in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, succeeding Tom Pickett, who left in 2023.

Brown joined Spotify in 2019, following stints at BuzzFeed, Tumblr, Groupon and Yahoo, and led the audio streaming giant’s approximately $2 billion global advertising business across dozens of markets. A Spotify spokesperson has not yet provided a comment or clarified the timing of Brown’s departure.

His exit comes amid a strategic recalibration of Spotify’s ad operations. During Spotify’s Q2 2025 earnings call on Tuesday (July 29), co-president and chief business officer Alex Norström acknowledged the need for faster progress in advertising, stating that while Spotify’s ad stack has improved, the company remains behind on its internal targets. 

“When I talk to advertisers, from big to small, they like our new ad stack,” Norström said. “They say things like, they can now buy in more ways — it just lowers the friction. And then obviously they can also now measure better. Now, to my mind, this is the momentum that we need to sort of ride on. We’re behind on the plan, but we’ll move faster. And we’ve been really clear that, you know, we have high expectations really across our business, and we need to see more progress within ads, and unfortunately, that hasn’t happened here. So we felt it was the right time for leadership change.”

Norström emphasized that “we think highly of Lee…  he’s done great things for Spotify in the last six years he’s been here, but right now, we need to accelerate the transformation of this business.”

Spotify’s ad revenue grew 5% year-over-year on a currency-neutral basis in Q2, with execs projecting stronger growth ahead, particularly from automated ad channels. The company’s overall performance exceeded expectations: Premium subscribers rose by 8 million to 276 million, and Monthly Active Users (MAUs) increased by 18 million to 696 million—both surpassing guidance. Total revenue reached 4.19 billion euros, up 15% year-over-year on a constant currency basis.