Epidemic Sound has appointed Kate Vale as MD of North America.
Vale is a former Managing Director of Spotify in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).
She joined SPOT in 2011 as part of the team that launched the service in the ANZ market. Over six years with the company, she oversaw its emergence as both the largest music streaming service and the biggest revenue stream for artists in the region, and also spearheaded Spotify’s expansion into Asia.
Prior to joining Spotify, Vale spent nearly nine years building Google and YouTube in ANZ, where she was Google’s first ever employee. She spent nearly seven years as Head of Sales and Operations, growing the ANZ team from zero to over 500 people and overseeing revenue growth of approximately USD $500m.
Subsequently taking on the role of Head of YouTube in ANZ, Vale introduced the platform’s first-of-its-kind monetization model in the region.
Now, at $370m-valued Epidemic, Vale will responsible for driving the company’s expansion plans in the US.
“We’re thrilled Kate has joined the Epidemic team. We knew straight away she was the right person for the role given her track record of taking individual markets from zero to hundreds of employees, scaling companies into the thousands worldwide.”
Oscar Höglund, Epidemic
Oscar Höglund, co-founder and CEO of Epidemic, said: “We’re thrilled Kate has joined the Epidemic team. We knew straight away she was the right person for the role given her track record of taking individual markets from zero to hundreds of employees, scaling companies into the thousands worldwide. We’re delighted to have her on board our journey to Soundtrack the World.”
Kate Vale, Managing Director of North America at Epidemic, said: “Since joining, I’ve been incredibly impressed by the potential of Epidemic’s product, people and mission. It’s the perfect time for me to join the team and I’m excited to continue building out our presence in the US over the coming months and beyond.”
In July, Stockholm-based Epidemic announced that it had raised $20 million to fuel market expansion, giving the company a $370 million valuation.
Epidemic is backed by Creandum, EQT Mid-Market and Atwater Capital. The company has offices in nine major cities across the globe: Stockholm, New York City, Los Angeles, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Madrid, Helsinki, Toronto and Sydney.
The company directly licenses music created by its own roster of independent musicians to what it calls ‘a wide range of storytellers; everyone from famous YouTubers to well-respected film producers and directors, as well as corporate brands and broadcasters’.
Controversially, musicians signed to Epidemic are not permitted to sign the same catalog with PROs such as STIM, PRS For Music, ASCAP, BMI and many others.
Epidemic was recently named as the second-fastest growing Swedish technology company on the Financial Times’ list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies.Music Business Worldwide
