Kobalt Founder Willard Ahdritz Stepping Aside as CEO for Chairman Role

The Kobalt universe also includes AMRA, the global digital music collection society it acquired in 2015.

"[What] I am most proud of is seeing the music industry transform," Ahdritz says in his entry in the just-released Billboard Power List. "When we started out, words like 'transparency,' 'artist-first,’ 'technology,' 'app’ and 'portal’ were all foreign to the music business. Now they are commonplace."

Hubert arrived at Kobalt in 2016 after previously working at BMG, where he had been president of marketing and creative. Hubert was quickly promoted to president and chief revenue officer, where he was charged with overseeing Kobalt's worldwide music publishing and neighboring rights businesses.

Ahdritz’s transition follows a string of C-suite changes at the music company. In September, Kobalt tapped Silicon Valley veteran Johan Land as its next chief product officer, replacing Simon Dennett, who took up a position as a non-executive board member at AMRA. In late November, the company promoted Jeannette Perez to the newly created position of chief experience officer. Then in December, Avid Larizadeh Duggan exited after less than two years as the company's chief operating officer.