Start-ups go through several stages on their way to becoming established companies and Pandora Chairman/President/CEO Joe Kennedy believes the Internet audio company is at a place where he can step away.
The company announced Kennedy is leaving and the process to find his successor is underway.
Kennedy joined Pandora in 2004 after spending five years at E-Loan, where he was president and chief executive officer. The electrical engineering and computer science grad from Princeton went on to earn a Harvard MBA. He was part of the original start-up team at Saturn.
Kennedy has led Pandora since 2004, when the company had about 15 people. He told analysts the decision to leave was “pretty recent. There’s no perfect time to do this” though he thinks this is a good time to do so.
“We’ve turned a corner on mobile monetization,” referring to Pandora’s reported $225.9 million in mobile revenue for fiscal 2013. Kennedy will remain in his current role until a successor is named.
