Universal Music Latin
Jesus Lopez
Chairman/CEO Universal Music Latin America & Iberian Peninsula
Jesus Lopez has purview not only of U.S. Latin operations for Universal Music Group but also Universal’s operations throughout Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Within that structure, he oversees a team of executives that includes Victor Gonzalez, president of Universal Music Latin Entertainment (with oversight of the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America); Jose Antonio Eboli, president of Universal Music Brazil; and the late Simon Bose, who until his death on Dec. 31 was president of Universal Music Spain. Universal’s capabilities as a global company have allowed it to mine different formats and assets across territories. “La Voz” (The Voice), for example, has been a boon for multiple Universal artists who have served as judges, including Marco Antonio Solís in Mexico and David Bisbal and Antonio Orozco in Spain. Universal’s in-house booking company, GTS, for the first time produced an entire Latin-American tour — for Il Divo — that visited more than 40 cities and yielded “great artistic and economic results,” Lopez says, in addition to 150-plus other shows across the region. Aside from Alejandro Sanz’s record global sales with “La Musica No Se Toca,” Lopez cites the breakout success of rapper J Balvin in the Andean region, Tan Bionica in Argentina, veterans Alejandro Fernandez and Jenni Rivera in the States and Mexico, and the continued success of Brazil’s Paula Fernandes, who notched the country’s top-selling album of 2013 with “Um Ser Amor.”