Spotify now has an actual Head of Hits, as Ned Monahan joins from Interscope

Spotify just hired a Head of Global Hits.

The newly-created position is filled, from today (December 3), by Ned Monahan, who was previously Marketing Director at Interscope.

What does a Head of Global Hits do?

According to Monahan’s Instagram, he is “working with the amazing people here to help break songs and artists using the biggest global music platform and playlists in the world”.

It looks like Los Angeles-based Monahan has been hired by the interim co-head of Spotify’s music team, Jeremy Erlich – who was formerly Interscope’s CFO and EVP Business Development before joining SPOT in June.

“I have tremendous gratitude for the artists, managers, colleagues and executives who helped me gain the experience and love for music that I’m bringing to this job.”

Ned Monahan, Spotify

Erlich and his fellow interim co-Head Of Music, Marian Dicus, jointly took up that position following the surprise departure of Nick Holmstén from Spotify in September.

Another major music figure at Spotify, former Global Head of Curation, Mike Biggane, left the firm to join Universal in July.

Ned Monahan appears to be essentially succeeding Biggane at Spotify, with a slightly different job title.

Further discussing his new role on Instagram, Monahan wrote: “I have tremendous gratitude for the artists, managers, colleagues and executives who helped me gain the experience and love for music that I’m bringing to this job. Last but not least, thank you [Jeremy Erlich] for putting me forward for this incredible opportunity. Let’s go!!!!!!!”

Prior to joining Interscope in 2017, Monahan worked as an A&R/Project Manager for management company Turn First (later First Access) for over three years.

At the close of September, Spotify had 248m monthly active users worldwide, with 113m subscribers.

The latter figure (113m) was up by 5m on the global number of subs Spotify had in the prior quarter.Music Business Worldwide