Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy Steps Down, Stock Jumps 20 Percent

By

Online music streaming service Pandora recently reinstated its 40-hour limit on monthly mobile usage for free users. Now, the company is in headlines again as its CEO, Joe Kennedy, announced he is stepping down during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call.

"My heart is still 100 percent in Pandora," he said in the call. "But as I approach the start of my tenth year, my head is telling me. It is time to get to a recharging station sooner rather than later."

The company’s stock jumped 20 percent after the news broke. Kennedy has helped the digital radio company grow to 67 million monthly active users with total revenue of $427.1 million in 2013, with $255.9 million of that from mobile revenue.

Pandora commands eight percent of all radio listening, and advertising revenue of $109 million amounted to a 51-percent increase over the fourth quarter a year ago.

"On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Joe for his leadership, dedication and innumerable contributions to Pandora,” Robert Kavner, Pandora’s lead independent director, said in a statement. “During his tenure, Joe and his management team created a terrific business from the ground up, and, through his stewardship during the formative stages of Internet radio, Pandora now leads with 70 percent market share. We appreciate his continued strong leadership and dedication to the company through this process.”

Image via CNNMoney

“As I near the start of my tenth year at the helm of Pandora, I am incredibly proud of the team and what we have accomplished in redefining radio," Kennedy said in the release. "As part of our Board discussions of the road that lies ahead, I reached the conclusion and advised the Board that the time is right to begin a process to identify my successor.”

Kennedy said he will remain CEO, chairman and president and help his replacement transition "no matter how long that process takes."


Edited by Brooke Neuman
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]

TechZone360 Web Editor

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Related Articles

How Is AI Bringing Intelligence to Traditionally Manual Inspection Workflows?

By: Contributing Writer    10/16/2026

For insurers, rental companies, fleet operators, and remarketing businesses, vehicle inspections are a part of everyday operations. Much of that proce…

Read More

3 Factors That Can Dramatically Impact Your Microsoft Intune Spend

By: Contributing Writer    10/13/2026

With remote and dispersed work here to stay for the long term, secure endpoint management has become a big headache for IT and cybersecurity teams. Th…

Read More

Why Threat Modeling Fails Without an Attacker's Perspective

By: Contributing Writer    10/13/2026

A security team might spend weeks mapping attack paths and planning defenses, only to be breached through a web application nobody remembered was stil…

Read More

From AI Experiment to Enterprise Strategy: Making Claude Work at Scale

By: Contributing Writer    10/12/2026

Artificial intelligence often enters an organization through experimentation. One employee discovers a useful prompt, another tests document analysis,…

Read More

SIEM needs exposure context to keep pace with AI-era threats

By: Contributing Writer    10/6/2026

Security information and event management (SIEM) platforms give security operations center (SOC) teams a central place to collect and analyze security…

Read More