A deep dive with Spotify’s chief public affairs officer

When Dustee Jenkins got the call to head public relations for Spotify in 2017, she almost didn’t take the job. At the time, the future of music streaming was somewhat unknown, and she wasn’t necessarily an early adopter of the platform.

That was also before the company went public and operated in more than 180 markets like it does today. Only a few years earlier, so many people were pirating music from the internet, the big question was, “Why would anyone pay for music?”

Today, Spotify has nearly 600 million users, more than any other music streaming subscription company in the world. People are so accustomed to having music at their fingertips, many hardly remember or have never experienced a time when it wasn’t that way.

With this kind of reach, Jenkins has a big job.

Now, in an expanded role as chief public affairs officer, she handles everything from crisis and internal communications to announcing product launches, as well as public policy and government affairs and trust and safety, which includes policies on content. On any given day, she’s on the phone with a prime minister or government leader who’s asking to take a song off the platform or helping the company prep its famous year-end “Spotify Wrapped” release (which just came out this week!).

This month, Jenkins visited Moody College of Communication as part of the Center for Entertainment and Media Industries’ Media Industry Conversations to talk to public relations majors and other UT students about the ins and outs of her career — from working in public affairs for former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to managing communications for Target during its high-profile data breach.

We caught up with her before her talk. Here’s what she had to say.

This article has been edited for clarity and length.

 Q: What attracted you to work in public relations?

A: I always believed in the power of storytelling and the idea of establishing a narrative as an opportunity to influence or drive change. I went to school for journalism and tried my hand at broadcast journalism and did not love it for a variety of reasons. I decided I was going to do something different, so I went to D.C. and worked for former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who's a UT alum. I ended up as her press secretary, and I just sort of fell in love with the whole thing. That was more than 20 years ago, and I’ve really never looked back.

Every time I've moved to a different industry, people have always said, “Oh, you haven't worked in tech,” or, “You don’t know anything about that specific industry.” But I know storytelling. I think if you start with the principles of communication, and you have that as the foundation, then you can build on top of that to tell sort of any story, manage any narrative or influence any issue.

Q: What does your job at Spotify entail? 

My role at Spotify is sort of three-pronged. I look at government affairs and policy, helping governments understand the issues most critical to our business. Right now, I'm focused on competition and online privacy issues. I'm also talking to them about music remuneration issues around payments to artists and how that's calculated and want them to understand our model.

The other rung is communications and PR. That includes financial communications, internal communications to employees, crisis communications, product communication, talking about new features, and working with artists and their PR teams.

The third area that I focus on is the policies on our platform. This is really related to where we draw the lines around content, how we think about the balance of creator expression and user safety. All of these things really fit together. My team at Spotify is fairly small compared to the very large number of engineers that we have, but I do think we have a pretty significant impact because of the work we do. 

Q: What is the most challenging thing that you’ve tackled in your career?

I've had some doozies. I think if you were to ask around, I probably am most well-known for doing crisis communications. I wouldn't say that it’s my favorite part. But I feel like, over the years, I've gotten pretty good at it. I managed Target's high-profile data breach. It was one of the most covered crises of all time, which included Target having to testify before the Senate and investigations by attorneys general. It obviously impacted millions and millions of people in the United States.

Then, you have heard a lot of discussions right now taking shape around the world about free speech and freedom of expression. That’s something that I'm sort of at the forefront of working on for Spotify. Then there are questions that linger about whether we pay artists enough. That’s something that, day in and day out, I really help people understand how the model actually works and that Spotify does not pay artists directly, but we pay the rights-holders who then pay the artists. You can see our annual report to learn more. 

I think, at a lot of places, when you see a problem, people think, how do I just make that go away? Our job is to run toward the problems – especially the really big and messy ones. That can be challenging. The reality is, given the news environment of today, it's a 24/7 cycle, everything you do is going to be scrutinized. And so we have to be really exceptional at what we do.

Q: What is your favorite part of your job? 

I'm really loving the government affairs and policy aspect right now. I think, for years, there was a lot of hand-wringing about what we were going to do to rein in Big Tech. Now, a lot of governments have put pen to paper writing laws about sharing information, privacy issues and algorithms. A lot of times those individuals who are writing these laws haven't spent time with the companies they're regulating. I'm seeking to help them understand that, when you regulate something like algorithms, you have to be very mindful. Music discovery is fueled by an algorithm. How you and I wake up to music we will enjoy and find new artists is managed by an algorithm. The algorithm introduces you to new content. So it's very easy to say, oh, algorithms are bad, and we need to regulate AI. But it's really important that you understand what all that entails. And it's not to say that, at Spotify, we are not for regulation. We absolutely are. But we want good regulation, and the reality is that’s not always the case.

When you think about the work of communications, it is the opportunity to help someone understand a complex issue. And I feel like as governments around the world wrestle with how to regulate Big Tech, there's a massive opportunity to help them understand these issues.

Q: How is your role changing with new technologies?

It’s changing constantly. When I started, I used to be at a fax machine, and I would clip news clips with scissors and tape. Obviously, now, I can pull up any article on my phone in a moment's notice. I was just sitting in the car, on a laptop, on a conference call on my phone. Our ability to do many things at once has really increased. That means that we're much more efficient, but it also means that we're being communicated with from so many different directions. As a team, we leverage social media, and we use AI. It doesn't mean we use it for everything, but we're always looking for ways to make our work more efficient. Because we're a tech company, we're willing to embrace it, but it doesn't mean we trust it all. I tell my team, check the info and then check it again. But I do think that if you are fearful of all these things, it will not serve you well. I’ve really tried to embrace the new tools and technologies available, even if I do so with a slight bit of skepticism.

Q: What would you tell students are the most important tools they need for a career in PR?

I really think it comes down to the individual. So much has changed in the last 20 years since I've been in the industry. But there are some truths that remain the same. It’s about the level of curiosity you possess. When you walk in the door, you want to learn and absorb, you want to be a part of a team. To me, that’s more important than understanding how to use the latest AI tool. It’s about the willingness to go the extra mile. Those are people that I gravitate to. Because I can teach tools, but I cannot teach work ethic. I cannot teach curiosity. Those are harder things to instill. 

Q: Why should they pursue PR as a profession?

I have been doing this for almost 25 years. I still pinch myself. I love it. Even on the hard, grueling days, it is such a fascinating field. You have a front row seat watching the world change around you, and you're shaping the conversation. It is so powerful and exciting. I can't think of a job I'd rather do. I travel a ton. I work a lot and often sleep with my phone because we're in the middle of a crisis. But I love it. And I think it's hard to find things like that, that you're this passionate about. But if you like writing and storytelling and sorting through the narrative, there's no better field.