Following the news that Charlotte Stahl is leaving her position as TikTok’s Head of Music Partnerships for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Ollie Wards has announced he’s leaving the role of Director of Music for Australia and New Zealand.
“After an awesome 5.5 years, soon I’m hanging up my headphones at TikTok!” Wards wrote in a post on LinkedIn. He noted in the post that he is “open for business” in 2026. TikTok has not announced a successor to Wards.
Wards joined TikTok in 2020, having come over from triple j, Australia’s state-funded broadcaster aimed at a youth music audience – where he served in numerous roles, including producer, program director and network lead.
In his LinkedIn post, Wards listed off some of the accomplishments of his time at TikTok, including building a digital radio station in partnership with iHeart; creating the first TikTok x TV simulcasts; producing TikTok Awards performances; and producing the first TikTok stadium livestream with Six60 when New Zealand was one of the few places where concerts could be held during pandemic lockdowns.
“But rather than ‘what’ I was part of, it’s the ‘how’ I’m most proud of,” Wards wrote.
“One of the first things I did at TikTok was create ‘liner notes’. A list of 11 guiding principles… to work by. A set of stated values we’d aim to live up to in service of our artists, music industry and TikTok audience.
“In a world of increasingly opaque pathways for artists, pitch portals, helpdesks and bots – hopefully that approach of being a human amongst it all helped.”
Ollie Wards, TikTok
“For example, #3 liner note is: ‘We aim to be contactable, while being effective at scale and as transparent as possible with our artists and industry partners – the most ‘human’ team at a music platform.’”
“In a world of increasingly opaque pathways for artists, pitch portals, helpdesks and bots – hopefully that approach of being a human amongst it all helped. Though maybe being ‘human’ is the minimum.”
Wards’ announcement on Thursday (December 11) came a day after Charlotte Stahl announced on her own LinkedIn page that she is departing the role of Head of Music Partnerships for the EMEA region after a year-and-a-half in the position. TikTok hasn’t announced a replacement for Stahl’s role.
And both those departures take place in the shadow of Ole Obermann leaving his role as Global Head of Music Business Development at TikTok parent ByteDance, with Tracy Gardner taking on the role as of March of this year.
In April, Obermann joined Apple Music as Co-Head of the platform with Rachel Newman.Music Business Worldwide
