+44 (0)20 7930 4158POPULAR TOOLS
Pandora appoints CFO amid claims it is profitable
Following reports that it experience its first profitable quarter at the end of 2009, online radio startup, Pandora, has appointed Salesforce veteran Steve Cakebread as its new CFO. Cakebread served as EVP and CFO at Salesforce between May 2002 and February 2008, and latterly became the enterprise software firm's president and chief strategy officer. During his time at Salesforce, Cakebread took the firm public, leading some to speculate that Pandora could be in line for an IPO in the near future. The executive takes up his role at Pandora on March 15.
According to a New York Timesreport, the music recommendation and online radio service, made roughly USD50m in annual revenue last year, from ads, subscriptions and affiliate payments, generated when users click-through to buy tracks from sites such as iTunes. The paper claims Pandora will go on to make USD100m this year, citing estimates by William Blair analyst Ralph Schackart.
The service, which launched in 2000, has some 48m users and is available as a mobile app on a number of devices including the iPhone, Palm Pre and BlackBerry phones. It is currently only on offer in the US, after withdrawing from a number of foreign markets in 2008 die to licensing issues, though the firm currently has other expansion ideas in mind.
Last week the firm appointed Sirius XM executive George Lynch to the newly created role of VP of automotive business development. The appointment marks a clear effort by Pandora to establish itself as a more versatile radio service, with internet car-radio offering a large potential market. In January the firm also reportedly signed a deal with Ford to include voice-activated streaming services in some in its cars.
"Pandora is an incredibly exciting company with great momentum," says Cakebread. "I'm excited to be joining such a promising company at this point in their growth."
Late last year, Pandora founder Tim Westergren told the Financial Times that revenues had more than doubled at the firm over the previous year and that the firm was well placed to float on the stock market during 2010. The firm's continued increase in users numbers is largely attributed to its surge in mobile users.
