Podspace announced that, as part of its growth strategy, it has made three senior hires and is launching an international expansion.

Industry veteran Öjje Holt — co-founder of Acast and former CEO of Spotify in the Nordics — joins as Director of Growth. Eeva Ronkainen becomes Country Manager at the newly opened Helsinki office, while Johan Leijonhufvud takes the role of Senior Client Manager. Both Ronkainen and Leijonhufvud bring extensive experience in audio media, including long employments at Spotify.

Podspace is a podcast platform and marketplace that empowers enterprise publishers with technology, distribution and monetization solutions. Through strategic partnerships, with industry leaders like Bonnier News, Perfect Day Media, and Podme, the company has quickly positioned itself as a dominant force in the Nordic market.

Podspace is now significantly strengthening its team with three key hires while simultaneously opening its second office, in Helsinki. Industry veteran and serial entrepreneur Öjje Holt,co-founder of Acast and former Nordic CEO at Spotify, joins a Director of Growth. At Podspace, Holt will leverage his strategic and hands-on experience to drive the company’s growth — a role where his background with senior positions at global corporations such as Apple and Microsoft will prove invaluable.

“I’m very familiar with Podspace and its young, energetic team, so when they offered me a position, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I aim to contribute with my strong work network, global relationships, and extensive experience in successful go-to-market strategies — including what pitfalls to avoid.”

Podspace has excellent potential to succeed beyond the Nordics. The combination of a young, driven team and an innovative product, along with someone who has launched products globally, ensures this will be an exciting journey. It’s going to be incredibly fun and challenging,” says Öjje Holt.

At the same time, Eeva Ronkainen is recruited as Country Manager for Finland. Ronkanien has solid experience from the media industry, including seven years at Spotify as Senior Account Director. She most recently held a position as Advertising Lead at Tise.

Podspace’s Swedish sales team, which offers advertising in the company’s podcast network, welcome Johan Leijonhufvud as the new Senior Client Manager. Leijonhufvud brings a wealth of experience, having most recently served as head of partnerships at The Swedish Cancer Society. He also boasts a strong background from Spotify, where he worked for 15 years, as a Senior Account Director among other roles.

Podspace now has its sights set on expanding its platform and marketplace beyond the Nordic region.

“With limited resources, we have broken into one of the most competitive markets and quickly established Podspace’s marketplace. This is profit that our product fulfills a need for enterprise publishers and advertisers. Now it’s about growing both within and outside of the Nordic reason and continuing to innovate our technical solution.

I am proud to bring in such valuable, experienced, and relevant expertise to our already fantastic team. Öjje, Eeva, and Johan are all dream recruitments and a perfect match for the phase we are facing. It’s going to be incredibly fun to make this journey together,” says Podspace co-founder and CEO Carl Fridsjö.

Podspace proudly announces the appointment of Lotten Skeppstedt as Director of Platform Services. With over a million listeners each week, Podspace leads the way as Sweden’s commercial podcast scene is ready to embark on an international journey.

Lotten Skeppstedt brings extensive experience from various corporations, startups, and scale-ups in media, entertainment, and technology. She has held senior positions at companies like Storytel, Bonnier Books, and Sesamy. Her experience spans various domains, from product development, text, and audio production to business development and forming commercial partnerships in international contexts.

“I’m genuinely thrilled to be part of the entrepreneurial team at Podspace. Their technical platform represents a new benchmark in podcast hosting and distribution in my view. With the growing popularity of podcasts, which have become intregral to many people’s media habits and a powerful advertising medium for brands, Podspace is well-positioned to take advantage of the continued growth and momentum in the market” says Skeppstedt on her decision to join the company.

“I look forward to contributing to the platform’s strategic direction, ensuring its competitiveness and exploring new business opportunities to ensure that the platform and services remain innovative and responsive to the ever-changing needs of the company and its customers, both large publishers and media buyers.”

CEO Carl Fridsjö underscores the significance of Skeppstedt’s appointment in the context of Podspace’s international plans: “We are delighted to welcome Lotten aboard. Her seasoned leadership will be instrumental, particularly as we embark on our journey toward internationalization. The overwhelming interest from Swedish publishers and media buyers has pushed us to accelerate our expansion plans. As we plan for 2024, expanding on new markets, including the broader Nordic region, is a natural next step.

About Podspace

Podspace is a premium distribution platform and marketplace for podcasts, collaborating with professional publishers and creators. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools encompassing CMS, hosting, advertising networks, campaign management, verified analytics, paywall solutions, and more. Ensuring cross-platform compatibility, Podspace distributes content across all major podcast players within the open ecosystem, while also providing seamless integrations with premium platforms such as Apple and Spotify.

According to the latest data from Poddindex (Kantar Mediafacts) Podspace was Sweden’s fastest growing podcast platform in 2023, with unique listener reach increasing by 21%. This growth is significantly higher than the 13% average observed among the four platforms included in the measurement (Podspace, Acast, Bauer Media, Swedish Radio).

Today, Podspace announced that several of the largest publishers in Sweden have signed partnerships with Podspace Ads, the company’s advertising network for 15-30 second audio ads.

In 2023, Podspace platform saw a growth of 21%, thereby surpassing the 1 million weekly unique listener mark. This solidified Podspace position as one of the leading podcast platforms in the Nordics.

“Rapid growth in a mature and competitive market is a testament that Podspace has a unique offer. The key, I think, has been our recent decision to focus the platform and our services primarily towards large enterprise publishers, combined with a flexible and results-driven approach. Podspace right to exist is defined by the value we bring to both publishers and advertisers, and thats deeply ingrained in our DNA and way of business,” says Carl Fridsjö, CEO of Podspace.

Podspace reports that several of Sweden’s largest publishers and creators have recently joined its ad network for audio ads, Podspace Ads. This move makes their inventory either fully or partially accessible to advertisers via Podspace’s marketplace. In less than a year since its launch in 2023, Podspace Ads has become the second largest podcast ad network in Sweden, thanks to a recent surge ad inventory.”

“The media agencies have begun to recognize the scale of our ad network and the results we can produce. As a result, we naturally become a key component of our customers’ audio campaigns, which is excellent. There’s been recent discussion about a “podcast bubble.” However, the reality is that the podcast market is expanding quickly, and Podspace is growing even faster than the market,” says Lukas Boo, Director of Sales.

Partners to Podspace Ads 2024 include (among others):



Bonnier News, including its subsidiaries (newspapers Expressen, Dagens, Nyheter, Dagens Industri etc)

Amedia / Moderne Media Perfect Day Media

Make Sense Media Kvartal

NTM