Lauren Jarvis has left her Spotify exec position as Head of Content Partnerships for North America.
Jarvis is joining the subscription book club startup Literati, as reflected by her LinkedIn bio. She’ll serve as the startup’s Chief Business Officer. Under Spotify, Jarvis managed the podcast audio catalog of more than 2 million podcasts. She is also credited with helping to oversee key podcast acquisitions for Spotify, including The Joe Rogan Experience, and Dax Shepherd’s Armchair Expert.
Jarvis joined Spotify in 2016 after serving as the Director of Business Development for VEVO. She also worked at the consulting firm Booz & Co. for more than six years. Literati hopes Jarvis will help drive its growth by scaling its business operations and striking new book club partnerships.
“I had the privilege of bringing podcasts to Spotify where I partnered closely with talent to inform, entertain, and inspire their fans through audio. I am excited to expand upon my experience at Literati. I wholeheartedly believe in Jessica’s vision to bring lovers of literature together, evolving the way that people find community online,” Jarvis told Variety.
Literati is an Austin-based startup first founded in 2017 as a kids’ book club. It has raised $54 million in funding to date since branching out to readers of all ages. Jarvis’ tenure as Spotify’s Head of Content Partnerships was a fruitful one.
Spotify says its podcast audience has nearly doubled since the start of 2019. It counts over 299 million listeners in 92 markets. It has a robust suite of analytics that offers podcast creators a deep dive into their data to determine their most successful episodes. It also helps drive engagement by identifying where and how users interact with podcast episodes.
Spotify has continued to acquire new podcast properties throughout 2019, 2020, and into 2021. But its podcast acquisition strategy may be slowing down as it works to mature the platform.
It acquired the Anchor podcast hosting platform to make it easy for beginners to get into podcasting. It also allows podcast creators to edit their podcasts with a suite of creation tools on Soundtrap that includes a transcript feature.
Spotify is also branching out into live audio rooms with Greenroom – a Clubhouse clone. It hopes users who are interested in Greenroom will be willing to turn their shows into podcasts for enjoyment after the live audio portion ends. It’s a way to keep creators entirely within the Spotify ecosystem when creating content – either live audio or podcasts.