EMI Ups Roger Faxon To Group CEO

Roger Faxon, chairman and chief executive of EMI Music Publishing since 2007, has been put in charge of the company’s recorded music division.

EMI announced the appointment today as part of an overhaul designed “to enable the company to reposition itself as a comprehensive rights management company that can take full advantage of all global opportunities in all markets for music.”

Many of EMI’s biggest acts, including Coldplay, the Beatles and Lily Allen, will still be signed to other publishers. But EMI clearly believes the more stable publishing side of the business can do more to help shore up the recorded music operation.

In a statement, Faxon said “the two divisions working in concert with one another as a global rights management business, can and will deliver for the artists and songwriters that we are privileged to work with now and in the future.”

Faxon will maintain responsibility for EMI’s publishing business as well as taking over the recorded music division.

“We need to bring the fun back into the music business,” Faxon told staff in an email obtained by Billboard.biz. In the email, Faxon outlined his plans further, stating that “we must be unswervingly focused on championing our artist community, and providing them with the help they need to achieve their maximum potential.”

He also stressed the company’s commitment to discovering new music, leveraging the company’s deep catalog and being “passionate about providing world-class service and services to the many and varied music users and retailers across the globe. We need to be the most trusted and effective partner to them, while also providing fans with the products that they demand. .
Our joy and enthusiasm for and about music is our greatest tool in building EMI.”

Faxon told staff he feels “fortunate to be joining EMI Music after it has really started to come alive again as a player in the recorded music business. Over the last year or so you have had some striking great successes both in new music and catalogue. And not unimportantly, the company has made great financial progress.”

Faxon, an American, will be the first Group chief executive since Eric Nicoli left in 2007 and EMI’s first New York-based chief executive.