After nearly 12 years of serving as Spotify’s chief human resources officer (CHRO), Katarina Berg will step down later this month. During that time, Berg has seen the organization’s workforce grow tenfold and launched programs including a global parental leave benefit and a work-from-anywhere policy.
Berg’s team has also shared its experiences publicly to guide the people and culture policies at other companies through a podcast, blog, and book, BOLD: A New Era of Strategic HR. “Most things that are written are by people in theory, writing books or talking about it, and then you can’t really apply it in practice,” she says. “We wanted to be very open and transparent about the way that we try to live our day to day.”
We reached out to Berg for her reflections on her time as CHRO of Spotify and her advice for building and sustaining strong cultures that drive business success. Here are excerpts from our conversation, edited for length and clarity:
What are you proudest of from your time as CHRO of Spotify?
If I were to pick one thing we did as a program, it would be our global parental leave policy, which we introduced in 2015, under the hashtag ‘#leadonleave.’ We brought our Swedish values and exported them globally. In Sweden, everybody has 480 days of parental leave, 80% is paid by the government through our taxes. Then depending on what type of company you work at, you get a top up, so you have 100% of your pay, which means that everybody takes those days. I was discussing with my team that I wanted us to do something globally, but then of course we would have to pay for it.
When I went to Daniel [Ek], co-founder and CEO, I had a whole presentation: ‘This is the cost, that is the investment, this is what we can do, and we are going to attract people and have longer tenure than any other tech company,’ and so forth. I got halfway into it, and Daniel looked at me and he said, ‘What took you so long?’
Since we implemented it, it has done exactly that. It has helped us attract people of a certain age. It has pushed tenure—you stay much longer at Spotify than at many peer companies. Obviously, it’s not just the global parental leave policy. We have flexible holidays, we have competence-based development, we have a flat organization, and so forth. But it has certainly been able to do those two things that we were hoping.
Especially for the male population, many people couldn’t imagine taking six months off and not have that hurt your career or cause people to think less of you or that you’re not ambitious or a bit strange. That’s also true for the women, and it helps them double down on their career. Because of that, it’s a diversity, inclusion, and equity tool at the same time as an attraction tool.
What is one particular large challenge that you faced during your time at the CHRO?
In the early days, I was the only woman on the executive team and a behavioral scientist when we were very much tech and product focused. We had to change a lot of things that the whole tech industry saw. It was a bit more of a bro-y culture. We had all the functions, but tech and product set the agenda, the culture, and the way we did things. Changing that was challenging in many, many ways. We had to say, ‘This is the way we do things, this is the way we speak.’ It was a hard time for my team. We were questioned, and we also thought, ‘Is it really worth it?’
But I’m happy that we had the tenacity, the grit, and the backing of the founders that we needed to not just grow and mature, but also do things in a different way than we had done in the first six to eight years. Then, once you have a good track record, something to show for what you’re trying to do, and a rhythm in how you communicate, it becomes easier. It’s not going to be less work, and you’re not going to have slow days, but you won’t have massive pushback on everything you are trying to do.
People start to understand that your function is there to put them ahead of everything and make everything a bit more human-first. At that point, it would be strange for anybody to go, ‘HR this,’ and, ‘HR that,’ and, ‘Here they come again with their PowerPoints.’ My team and I have also been very aware of not just trying to be close to the business, but be the business, not a satellite function. But those first two years were really rough and tough because we were the odd bird in a tech company.
You’re in the middle of handing off your role to your successor, Anna Ludström. Do you have any advice for structuring succession and handoffs?
Anna has been with the company for eight years. It’s been very open and very clear in the company that she is my number two, so it didn’t come as a big surprise.
I had also spent the last four years talking more and more intensely about succession. All executives and all senior leaders need to have a successor. It would be great if you have not just one, but two or three. If you don’t do that, you’re not doing an important part of your role, which is to make the company less and less vulnerable. We’ve always said that we believe in homegrown talent, and we also see that people are more successful if they understand the way that we do things and find a way to be no matter where they are, who they are, or where they sit.
Having said that over and over again, you need to practice what you preach. In every role, you need to be a role model, but as a CHRO, you need to be a role model even more. On one of the many walk-and-talks I had with Daniel, our CEO and co-founder, I said, ‘I would never ever forgive myself if I woke up and Anna comes in and says she’s leaving because I never seem to be ready to leave. So I’m ready.’
For me, it’s almost like asking for a divorce and then waking up and understanding that you love everything. And even though you initiated it, you didn’t get the children, you didn’t get the house, and you didn’t even get the dog. But it’s the right decision. You need to lead by example. You can’t talk about succession planning and not hand it over.
Read our full conversation with Berg, including discussion of how to build a close CEO relationship and the advice she’d give to first-time CHROs.
