A life for music

“I played the violin and as a girl I wanted to work in music. I took the CLEACC entrance exam at Bocconi, but if they hadn’t accepted me, I would have gone into aerospace engineering. Now that my job is in the music industry, I can say that I have come full circle.” Federica Tremolada is Spotify’s Managing Director for Southern and Eastern Europe. A graduate in Economics and Management for Arts, Culture, and Communication from Bocconi University, she also completed a postgraduate course in Leading Global Business at Harvard Business School while in the US. 

Her first work experience was at BMG Ricordi, where she discovered a recording world still very much tied to the physical market. “It wasn’t easy because when I entered the business world, the music industry was in a profound crisis. Revenues were plummeting, there was not much innovation and the culture still had little room for women. I was lucky enough to join Buongiorno, an Italian start-up, and in a few months, I was the international media partnerships manager.” Her work took her to London and Milan. 

Then came the offer from Google. “I was the first person Google hired in Italy to work on YouTube; I was tasked with developing content partnerships both nationally and then, over time, for some Southern European markets. It was a crazy experience, but I grew a lot.” This was followed by the launch of YouTube TV in the US, where she spent three years based in New York. 

Until she joined Spotify and returned to her music. She now oversees 28 markets for the streaming giant. She says: “I love the fact that I get to work with different cultures, both at a consumer level and as part of a team. It’s important for me to have an impact on the local business and it’s even more rewarding to enhance the way people enjoy music and podcasts, the soundtrack to our everyday life.” 

Tremolada goes on to explain that she feels a responsibility to help the next generation of women. “I try to work on women’s empowerment: those who are in leadership roles, I think, have a responsibility to support other women in their development by ‘growing the pie’ for everyone. If we’re sitting at a table where they would normally say that we women have two seats, I up the ante: this table needs to have more women, without necessarily looking at gender quotas.” Not taking away, but adding and including instead. 

Tremolada, who recently became a mother, explains that motherhood should not be an obstacle for a working woman: “It’s not easy, you have to be super organized, but I think the goal is to build a routine that allows you to be the best you can be at work and at home. In my experience, working for a company that offers flexible working hours has been vital in finding that balance, as well as having the support of key people in raising a child.” 

On leadership, she says: “I played basketball for ten years as a point guard, and the sport showed me how team dynamics can be found by helping everyone to be their best, by developing a sense of belonging and engagement. That is what distinguishes a leader from a boss. I’ve also read a ton of books, like the one by the footballer Abby Wambach, who wrote a lot about the new concept of a leader.” And a leader, according to Tremolada, must be authentic. “I always tell young men and women not to be afraid of making mistakes. You have to learn to make better mistakes in order to grow.”