The Milan-based concert promoter F&P (Friends & Partners) Group has hired the former Sony Music Entertainment Italy executive Andrea Rosi as head of business development.
Rosi, who exited Sony on March 30, will start working at F&P on May 4. He will have particular responsibilities for the company’s digital and interactive areas.
Rosi has a technological background. He was head of the Italian digital music service provider Vitaminic until 2003, and was head of digital business development for southern Europe at Sony BMG, prior to becoming GM of the RCA label (previously BMG Ricordi) in Italy.
“I see this job as a great challenge,” Rosi tells Billboard.biz. “The music business is certainly evolving and companies appear to be converging, both in Italy and elsewhere. Record labels are moving into live music, while concert promoters are moving into the record business. One day there’ll only be one type of music company and it will operate at 360 degrees.”
F&P is a case in point. It recently signed an agreement for promotion and marketing with a leading Italian artist, Renato Zero, when the latter left Sony Music and released a record on his own Tattica label. The album, “Presente,” debuted at No. 1 following its March 20 release.
F&P, which is headed by Ferdinando Salzano, is 60% owned by Warner Music Italy, although Salzano describes the relationship between the two companies as “purely financial.” cites the fact that Warner Italy’s biggest artist, Laura Pausini, is with another promoter, Live Nation, as a sign of autonomy.
A number of F&P’s artists are signed to Sony, while two other former Sony executives, namely Michele Barrile (head of the artistic division) and Andrea Papalia (head of the marketing division), now work for F&P. Sony Music Italy acquired control of an Italian concert promoter, the Modena-based International Music and Arts, last year.
