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Sony’s Thomas Hesse to move back to Bertelsmann?
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 30 November 2011
Thomas Hesse, Sony Music’s President of Global Digital Business, may be about to move back to German media firm and BMG owners Bertelsmann.
Hesse became a senior player at Sony Music via the merger of the Sony record company with the BMG record labels in 2004. He stayed with the Sony music firm after Bertelsmann sold its stake in the SonyBMG joint venture to Sony Corp in 2008, and was a close ally of the music major’s former CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, himself a former BMG man.
Schmidt-Holtz, of course, stepped down at Sony earlier this year to be replaced by former Universal Music top man Doug Morris. Meanwhile, back at Bertelsmann, another of Hesse’s close former colleagues, Thomas Rabe, is about to be promoted from CFO to the CEO role.
It’s thought that with Sony Music now under a new regime, and with Rabe having digital expansion high on his agenda for when he takes over as Bertelsmann CEO, the idea quickly came up for Hesse to move back to the German conglom.
Neither Sony nor Bertelsmann have commented on the rumours.
