Amy Thomson is exiting her role at Chief Catalog Officer at Hipgnosis Song Management at the end of September, MBW has confirmed – but will remain as a consultant with the company.
Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis has paid tribute to Thomson and her contribution to the music firm, noting that “the amount of hours and careful consideration she put into every detail [of her role] was enormous”.
Thomson joined Hipgnosis two years ago following a highly successful stint in artist management, working with clients including Swedish House Mafia and DJ Snake. Thomson also worked as a marketing advisor to Kanye West during the artist’s Yeezus period.
The founder of ATM Management, her achievements prior to Hipgnosis included taking Swedish House Mafia to Madison Square Garden, selling out the venue in four minutes.
At Hipgnosis Song Management, UK-based Thomson led development of an in-house data platform for Hipgnosis’ acquired catalog, as well as working closely with the firm’s sync and marketing functions.
Following the departure of Thomson from her full-time role, her previous management duties will be split between Ben Katovsky (COO & President, Hipgnosis Song Management) and Ted Cockle (Chief Music Officer, Hipgnosis Song Management).
In July, alongside Mercuriadis, Thomson announced a digital administration and sub-publishing partnerships with Sacem and peermusic. Thomson said that, via this deal, “the true agenda of totally transparent and optimum revenue takes a huge leap in the direction we promised”.
Paying tribute to Thomson today, Mercuriadis said: “I’m pretty sure Amy and I have lived more than a few lifetimes together. Regardless of how our careers have developed we are first and foremost managers that share the same songwriter/artist-first principles.
“We’ve both chosen to evolve our careers beyond artist management because of our passion to bring change to this industry in order to take the Songwriters and artists from the bottom of the economic equation to the top. We advocate and fight on behalf of the songwriter and artist with simple logic at the core and with no regard for the politics of this industry. We know the difference between right and wrong and we are decisive.”
He added: “Amy was already one of the most successful people in our industry well before she came to Hipgnosis and the confidence that came with that has been a massive asset for us as we took what was the traditional publishing business and reinvented it as Song Management.
“To say Amy is fearless would be a massive understatement so when I asked her to throw all of the rules out the window and redesign everything as she saw fit it came very naturally.”
Merck Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis
“To say she is fearless would be a massive understatement so when I asked her to throw all of the rules out the window and redesign everything as she saw fit it came very naturally. Even though she made it seem easy to make us the future I know the amount of hours and careful consideration she put into every detail was enormous.
“Amy’s a force of nature that easily put in 4 years of effort to our 2 plus years together and I can’t think of anyone else who could have done what she’s done. Put simply she helped exponentially accelerate our growth.
“I’m very grateful to her for believing in me and Hipgnosis and being such an important contributor to our success. No other company has invested the better part of $3 billion in amongst the most successful and culturally important songs of all time in 4 years. That wasn’t easy to do but it would have been impossible if Amy wasn’t holding the fort down.
“As a result of our partnership with Blackstone we now have all the capital we need and again I’ve been able to make that a reality as I knew I could rely on Amy to manage the catalogue. She equally well has helped to super-serve our public fund and make it a huge success for both our shareholders and the incredible songwriters who have entrusted us with their iconic songs.
“I’m delighted that she will continue to be part of the Hipgnosis family through the new consulting arrangement we’ve put in place. Over the last years no matter where I am in the world I know I’m either going to wake up or go to bed with a flurry of emails from Amy and long may that continue.”
Amy Thomson appeared on a popular MBW Podcast earlier this year in which she outlined the three things she believed the modern music industry needed to fix – and why.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the UK-listed Hipgnosis entity that has spent over $2 billion on song rights to date.
Hipgnosis Song Management it the investment manager and ‘song management’ partner of both Hipgnosis Songs Fund and Hipgnosis Songs Capital.
The latter private fund is backed by Blackstone and has this year acquired catalogs from the likes of Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, and the Leonard Cohen estate.Music Business Worldwide