Following 20 years in the music industry as an award-winning composer and accomplished musician, Tim Westergren, founder and chief strategy officer of Pandora, launched the popular personalized radio service with the Music Genome Project, which uses a mathematical algorithm to predict a person’s musical taste based on a small musical sampling.
Along with guiding Pandora's overall strategy and vision, he spends much of his time as the company’s chief evangelist, traveling the country to connect with some of the tens of millions of people who use Pandora. He also works extensively with technology and distribution partners, advertisers and investors to help shape the future of Pandora and personalized radio.
Named by TIME magazine as one of 2010’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” Westergren’s experience in the music industry spans production, audio, engineering, film scoring and live performance. Trained as a jazz pianist, his musical background spans such genres as rock, blues, jazz and classical music. A musician's musician, he is dedicated to helping talented emerging artists find an audience. He studied computer acoustics and recording technology at Stanford University, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree.