Niklas Brantberg has started as Spotify‘s Managing Director for the Nordics.
He announced the move in a post published on LinkedIn on Tuesday (September 8), writing that his first day in the job was Monday (September 7).
Brantberg joins the streaming platform from Overtone Studios, the Sweden-based label where he was CEO.
Overtone sits alongside Epidemic Sound within Epidemic Group, the parent company that said in July it was changing its name from Epidemic Sound Group.
Brantberg described the move as “the end of an incredible 12 years at Epidemic Sound and Overtone Studios“, and thanked colleagues including Epidemic Sound co-founder Oscar Höglund.
He joined Epidemic Sound in 2014 and went on to serve as its SVP of Global Sales and Streaming Partnerships, a role in which he handled the company’s deals with streaming services.
Brantberg became Chief of Music at the Stockholm-headquartered production music company in 2019, before taking over as CEO of Overtone Studios.
Epidemic Sound acquired the label in 2022, when it was named A-P Records. It was rebranded as Overtone Studios in March 2023.
Overtone Studios releases the music of Johan Röhr, the Swedish composer named by newspaper Dagens Nyheter in March 2024 as the musician behind hundreds of invented artist names on Spotify.
DN reported that Röhr‘s music had gone out under 50 composer aliases and at least 656 invented artist names, and had been played around 15 billion times on the platform, as covered by MBW at the time.
Brantberg, then Overtone‘s CEO, told the newspaper in a written statement that many of the artist names were “old and inactive musical projects”, and that the label had “significantly reduced the number of artist profiles that actively publish music, even though today we work with many more creators”. He also called Röhr a “pioneer in the mood music genre”.
“Spotify has spent 20 years changing how we discover and experience music, and helped build one of Sweden’s biggest creative export industries,” wrote Brantberg. “And with that comes a big responsibility.”
“I WANT SPOTIFY TO BE A CONSTRUCTIVE VOICE ON THE BIG, COMPLEX QUESTIONS AHEAD SUCH AS AI AND PLATFORM RESPONSIBILITY.”
NIKLAS BRANTBERG, SPOTIFY
“I want to build stronger, more valuable partnerships with artists, authors, creators, labels and publishers across the Nordics, and help more Nordic talent reach a global audience,” he said. “I also care a lot about making sure the time people spend on Spotify actually feels worth it – helping them discover music, books and podcasts they’d never have found otherwise.
“And I want Spotify to be a constructive voice on the big, complex questions ahead such as AI and platform responsibility.”
“Right now though, mostly I just want to listen and learn,” Brantberg added. “If you’re an artist, author, creator, label or publisher and have thoughts on where Spotify and this industry should go – I’d genuinely love to hear them. Feel free to reach out.”
Spotify appointed Chris Whiteley as its Managing Director for Northern Europe in March 2025.
That region includes the UK and Ireland, and the London-based role covers coordination of the marketing, music, and podcast functions across it, according to the job description Spotify published at the time.
Spotify counted 300 million Premium subscribers and 777 million Monthly Active Users at the close of Q2 2026, according to results published on August 4.
Europe accounted for 36% of the company’s Premium subscriber base at the end of that quarter.
The quarter also included an in-app experience marking Spotify‘s 20th anniversary, which the company said nearly 100 million users engaged with in its first six days.Music Business Worldwide