Sony Music Label Group U.S. head Don Ienner is adding the title of chairman to his role as CEO. The promotion is one of the first key staffing moves from newly installed Sony BMG Music Entertainment chief executive Rolf Schmidt-Holtz.
The bump in title is expected to have little impact on Sony’s operations. Last December, Ienner engineered a restructuring of the group’s labels and divisions and named Michele Anthony his successor as Sony Music Label Group U.S president.
Ienner still oversees all activities of the labels and divisions within the Sony Music Label Group, including Columbia Records Group, Epic Records, Sony Music Nashville and Sony Urban Music. He also works closely with the company’s senior management team to develop and implement strategic initiatives for Legacy Recordings, RED Distribution and Sony Wonder.
Ienner’s promotion is steeped in symbolic value to the deeply divided joint venture. The move aims to further stabilize the company’s upper-management ranks in the wake of former CEO Andrew Lack’s move to the nonexecutive chairman slot. It also represents a vote of confidence in Ienner in the shift to a Bertelsmann-topped Sony BMG.
“During his 18 years with Sony Music, [Ienner] has played a central role in the success of countless numbers of artists and projects,” Schmidt-Holtz said in a statement.
As head of Sony Music Label Group U.S., Ienner has created of a number of shared-services initiatives, including Sony Urban Music, and a group-level A&R and artist development team that includes Michael Caplan, David Massey, Keith Naftaly, Jay Landers and Steve Lillywhite. He also revitalized the company’s Nashville labels, which introduced groundbreaking artists Gretchen Wilson and Miranda Lambert.
