VAN RIJN TO RUN UNIFIED DOWNTOWN

Downtown Music Holdings has streamlined its business and professional-services units under a single division with the catchy name of Downtown Music. FUGA CEO Pieter van Rijn will be the unit’s president.

The alignment brings together B2B distributor FUGA, Downtown Neighbouring Rights, digital-rights management provider Adrev and Downtown Music Services' artist, label-services and publishing-administration units. The company serves more than 2,500 business and professional clients, including publishing companies, songwriters, management companies and distribution platforms.

“Downtown’s new structure offers the most nimble, flexible end-to-end service offering available in the music industry,” said Downtown CEO Andrew Bergman. “This new structure will help us to further empower our artist, label and creator partners around the world. Under Pieter’s leadership, FUGA became the industry-leading provider of the services rights owners need to be successful in the modern music industry, and we’re excited for him to bring his vision and energy to this newly integrated division of the company.”

Downtown acquired FUGA in early 2020, upon which van Rijn developed the Amsterdam-based organization's global footprint, launched new hubs throughout the world and led the transformation of FUGA into a full label-services business.

“What we've built and developed at FUGA has grown into the leading partner for independent music companies for distribution, technology, marketing services, analytics and royalty accounting,” van Rijn said. “Bringing all that to the broader offering of business services is a challenge I'm truly energized about. Looking at new markets for us to continue to grow, such as Asia, Latin America, Africa and specific parts of Europe, is a tremendous opportunity we are focused on groupwide.”