After serving two years as EVP International Artists at BMG, Alistair Norbury has been promoted to the top UK job as President, Repertoire & Marketing. He replaces Alexi Cory-Smith who exited the company after seven years in December. In his new role, Norbury will be responsible for both music publishing and frontline recordings in the region. (MBW).
London-based booking agency Coalition has hired Anthony Norris as its new Managing Director and Owen Kent as Creative Director. The duo will report to Coalition Agency founder and CEO, Guy Robinson. Former Coda Agency MD Claire Horseman has also joined the live events and talent representation company in a non-executive role.
Sebastian Carlomagno, MD of Move Concerts Argentina and formerly of T4F and Ocesa, has been promoted to COO of the leading Latin American promoter.
Def Jam Recordings has promoted three of its promotion executives, Nicki Farag, Noah Sheer and Keith Rothschild. Farag moves up to EVP and Head of Promotion, making her the first woman to have the title in Def Jam's 34-year history. Sheer is now EVP/Rhythm & Lifestyle Promotion and Rothschild has been upped to SVP/Promotion (MBW).
Despite Jimmy Iovine's insistence that he's with Apple Music for the longhaul, rumours that the record industry veteran and Beats co-founder is exiting the tech giant persist. The Wall Street Journal reported that he will shift to a "consulting" role in August this year.
FremantleMedia CEO Cécile Frot-Coutaz is leaving the company in order to become Google's Head Of YouTube for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Artist Management company C3 Management has expanded into Los Angeles and London and added some established talent managers to its team. Chris Gentry, Simon White and Matt Sadie bring the likes of Phoenix, Hudson Mohawke and The Lemon Twigs to the company, while Martin Anderson arrives at C3 with French duo Justice.
Lauren Lytle has joined Event Genius. Lytle, formerly of Ticketmaster's Front Gate Tickets, joins the Leeds-based ticketing and event technology company as head of technical operations.
Celine Joshua is joining Universal Music as General Manager, Commercial, Content and Artist Strategy. In her most recent role as SVP Commerce for Epic Records and Sony Music, Joshua started up a roster which saw her sign online 'influencers' as content creators.
And Universal Music Group has made significant changes to its international structure, with recent recruit Adam Granite becoming responsible for Greater China, India and other territories. MBW reports that Adrian Cheesley, SVP of Universal Music Group International, will be leaving the company as a result.
Over a month after The Grammys took place, the Recording Academy's much-mooted 'Task Force' is starting to take shape. The group, which will be partly tasked with ensuring diversity can thrive at the awards event, is being headed up by Tina Tchen, former Chief Of Staff for the ex-First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obam
Paul Rothenberg, Jeremy Mohr and Joshua P. Binder have announced their partnership as Rothenberg, Mohr & Binder LLP, a full-service music and entertainment law firm. The firm has offices in Beverly Hills, New York and Miami and brings together the partners' combined 50-plus years of experience ...
London-based blockchain ticketing platform Aventus Systems has hired Andrew Ford as chief marketing officer. Ford – a tech industry veteran who has held senior roles at Norton/Symantec, Dell, BT, HP and data analytics firm Pitney Bowes – will work alongside Aventus co-founders Annika Monari and Alan Vey, CTO Andy Grant and their team to prepare for the upcoming launch of the the Aventus Protocol.
Entertainment PR firm Purple has announced that it has hired Claire Coulton as a new Senior PR. Claire has worked in a number of music PR roles, most recently at Murray Chalmers. She takes up the new position next week. Her roster will include Lewis Hamilton, Alicia Keys, Adwoa Aboah's Gurls Talk, Karryn, Ama Lou and Keir.
Icelandic promoter Sena Live says Iceland Airwaves long-serving festival director Grímur Atlason has left after eight years saying “it’s time to move on”, adding: “It’s been a privilege and pleasure working for this great festival with all my marvellous co-workers over the years.”
Well-regarded British A&R specialist Nick Huggett has joined Because Music as the Chief Creative Officer, based at its UK company. The London-based exec is best known in industry circles for signing the likes of Adele and Dizzee Rascal to XL Recordings. He has also worked at Columbia, Island and Parlophone, which he joined in 2016.
Tuma Basa, head of hip-hop programming at Spotify since 2015, and who has led RapCaviar to become one of Spotify's Top 5 playlists worldwide has left the company. The news of Basa's exit comes just one day after Spotify filed to float on the New York Stock Exchange and follows departures by Kevin Brown (Head of UK/International Artist & Label Services), Stefan Blom (Chief Content Officer), Rob Harvey (Head Of US Label Relations) and Tom Calderone (Head Of Video) and Pat Shah (Head of Original Content Licensing). But Spotify has appointed Tom Connaughton as Head of Artist & Label Marketing, UK. Connaughton will join Spotify next month after seven years with Vevo, where since 2016 he worked as SVP of Creative Content & Programming out of the firm's New York office.
RCA Records has promoted Karen Lamberton to Executive Vice President, Soundtracks and Film & TV Licensing. She moves up after spending over 15 years at Sony, where she's had a hand in multiple Grammy nominated singles and secured partnerships between NFL and Pentatonix, Miguel and Tinashe, as well as sync deals for ZAYN and P!nk. (MBW)
Timothy Xu, who was until 2016 CEO and Chairman of Sony Music Entertainment in Greater China, has been named President and CEO of Taihe Music Group. The largest owner of Chinese music in the world, TMG merged with digital platform Baidu Music in 2015. Today, the company estimates that it reaches 500m users online.
