Corner Office: Afo Verde, Head of Sony Latin, on Ricky Martin, His Producer Roots and Argentine Pride
Afo Verde, a former musician-turned-producer in his home country of Argentina, was named president of Sony's Latin region in 2009. Three years later, he was upped to chairman/CEO, adding Spain and…
The 50 or so employees at Sony Music Entertainment’s Miami headquarters are used to seeing Afo Verde walk briskly, fitting for a part-time soccer player. But today, he limps, still recovering from a 3-month-old ankle fracture sustained during his company’s weekly soccer match. “I’d love to say I was scoring a goal but the truth is, I stepped in a pothole,” Verde admits. That’s not to say the sporting tradition will stop. The Friday evening bouts have been in place for years and draw such soccer-loving acts as Billboard’s International Power Players: Afo Verde
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The music for the World Cup was a major priority for you in 2014. Was the atmosphere in the Miami office super-competitive during the World Cup games this summer?
Yes. I have people from all over the world, and those that weren’t represented in the World Cup had to choose sides. We made a deal where the team that was leading could make everyone else take a selfie with the country’s T-shirt and put it up on Facebook. There are few things more spectacular for an Argentine like me than to see a Brazilian with an Argentina tee on.
This article first appeared in the Oct. 25 issue of Billboard.