BMG Overhauls U.S. Repertoire Team, Zach Katz Stepping Down
By Jem Aswad
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – is splitting its US repertoire organization into three units, the company announced today. In its new structure BMG’s three key US offices: Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York, will effectively have the same status as countries such as the UK and Germany, reporting directly to worldwide CEO Hartwig Masuch.
The company cited its recent growth, which has seen revenue double in three years, as the reason for the move, but also because Zach Katz (pictured above), the company’s current US President of Repertoire and Marketing, he will step down from company at the end of the year in order to take up an unspecified new role.
Effective January 1, 2019, BMG US will comprise three distinct units:
- LOS ANGELES, where Thomas Scherer has been promoted to EVP, Repertoire & Marketing, Los Angeles.
- NASHVILLE, where Jon Loba, EVP BBR Music Group, and Kos Weaver, EVP BMG Nashville, will formally take joint control of BMG’s repertoire operation in the home of country music;
- NEW YORK, where John Loeffler is appointed EVP, Repertoire & Marketing, New York.
BMG CEO said, “The US represents more than 50% of BMG’s business. To give you a sense of scale, if it was a country, our Los Angeles operation would be our biggest territory some way ahead of the UK, Nashville would be our third biggest territory just ahead of Germany and New York would be sixth biggest, just behind France.”
“Putting this new structure in place will empower local management and enable us to better deliver our mission of offering artists and songwriters a genuine alternative to the established companies.”
Regarding Katz’s departure, Masuch said, “Zach has made a substantial contribution to BMG over the past six years,” says Masuch, “most notably in helping our US operation make the transition from an acquisition-driven start-up to an organically-driven music publishing and recordings company which genuinely delivers on its core values to its clients. I have immense respect for the commitment he has given BMG and salute his multitude of achievements.
“Zach is above all a close friend and I am convinced we’ll work again together in the future.”
Says Katz, “I would like to express my utmost gratitude to Hartwig, for believing in me over the years and believing in the US team. Under his management, BMG has grown exponentially and achieved more in the past 10 years than most companies could ever dream possible. I am positive the greatest years of BMG still lie ahead with the company’s new US leadership group at the helm.”
Under the new structure Thomas Scherer will head the repertoire operation in Los Angeles. Scherer, a 30-year veteran of the music industry, joined BMG in 2008 as one of the original employees at the company headquarters in Berlin. In his previous role as EVP Frontline Publishing, US & Global Writer Services, he was responsible for BMG’s Los Angeles and New York teams, as well as the international publishing creative teams.
In Nashville, Kos Weaver and BBR Music Group’s Jon Loba have jointly been appointed to oversee the office and lead the publishing and recorded music teams based there. Kos Weaver joined BMG to run its Nashville publishing operation in 2013. Loba joined BMG in January 2017 following the company’s acquisition of BBR Music Group. The new joint management structure comes ahead of BMG moving its publishing and recorded music teams together into a new Nashville location in 2019. In New York, John Loeffler will be responsible for BMG’s music publishing and recorded music operations in the Big Apple, including S-Curve Records.
Said Masuch, “In a fast-growing company like BMG, one of the great challenges is to ensure you have the optimum structure for each stage of development. This structure prepares the ground for BMG’s next phase of the growth in the US and I would like to congratulate Thomas, John, Kos and Jon as they take on these exciting new roles.”
