Pandora Promotes Lizzie Widhelm to VP National Ad Sales, Entertainment

In 2009, Widhelm was instrumental in driving Pandora's success with entertainment, film and TV advertisers. Communicating the value of innovative multi-platform advertising solutions that perfectly meet the needs, challenges and goals of clients in the entertainment arena is how Widhelm created awareness among one of the most forward-thinking industries about the unique benefits to advertising on Pandora. "It's my passion to thoroughly understand the moving dynamics of user experiences on Pandora," said Widhelm. "By understanding our users and what engages them, I can create opportunities for entertainment marketers to get their brand in front of users when they are actively engaged and the advertiser message actually enhances the user experience."

Pandora gained critical traction in the entertainment category in 2009. "Our promotion of Lizzie into this position reflects both her success at developing the market and Pandora's expanded focus on and commitment to the entertainment industry," said John Trimble, chief revenue officer. "Clearly, Pandora's audience is a core target for the entertainment industry -- they are young, affluent and influential. They are the first to see new films, discover new TV series and buy the latest video games which they in turn recommend to their family and friends. As a result, the entertainment business is a major component of Pandora's focus going forward."

Since February 2008, Widhelm, based in Los Angeles, has served as regional sales vice president overseeing Pandora's West Coast ad sales team and will continue that oversight in her new capacity. She joined Pandora in March 2006 as director of west coast sales and opened Pandora's first field sales office in Los Angeles. Widhelm has successfully signed some of Pandora's largest advertisers, including Visa, Nike, Honda, H-P and ABC. Prior to working at Pandora, Widhelm spent several years working with startups including Broadband Enterprises, a video network, and game companies iWin, Uproar and Flipside before and subsequent to their sale to Vivendi Universal.

In her new position, Widhelm will continue to report to Cheryl Lucanegro, senior vice president of ad sales.

About Pandora

Pandora (www.pandora.com) is the personalized internet radio service available through personal computers, mobile phones, and a wide array of consumer electronic devices. With 45 million US listeners, 16 million of which use Pandora off the PC, Pandora is the world's largest internet radio service. By simply entering a favorite artist or song, listeners can instantly enjoy a personalized station based on Pandora's Music Genome Project™. For more than ten years, Pandora's team of professional musician analysts have been building the world's most comprehensive and intricate musicological database, manually analyzing over 700,000 songs across up to 400 distinct musical attributes per song. This musical 'DNA,' representing every dimension of timbre, melody, harmony, and rhythm, captures each song's unique musical identity, and enables Pandora to quickly and easily create relevant playlists, full of discovery. 70% of the collection, which includes everything from early Baroque music to the latest hip hop, consists of tracks from independent artists and labels. Real time 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' feedback allows listeners to further refine their stations, which are stored and universally available through their account. More than 2 million new listeners join Pandora every month, including over 600,000 on mobile and CE devices.