Kieron Donoghue, the former global playlisting strategy lead at Warner Music, has become MBW’s latest exclusive columnist.
Donoghue launched and founded Warner’s flagship streaming playlist brand, Topsify, after the major acquired his Playlists.net company in 2014.
For the next three years, Donoghue led Topsify’s global strategy, in a transformational period for the record industry – one which saw Spotify‘s worldwide active user count more than double (from 60m in December 2014 to 140m in June 2017).
Subsequent to his tenure at Warner, Donoghue has become leader of UK-based Humble Angel Records – a streaming-focused independent record company whose artists have racked up over 100 million plays to date.
The announcement of Donoghue joining the ranks of Music Business Worldwide‘s columnists comes in the same week that Penske Media Corporation (PMC) confirmed a substantial equity investment in MBW, bringing MBW closer to key PMC properties such as Rolling Stone, analytics platform Alpha Data and Variety.com.
“As MBW ramps up our ambition and investment in world-leading music business editorial, the addition of Kieron is a perfect fit.”
Donoghue’s columns will appear in MBW’s UK-focused quarterly magazine, Music Business UK, before landing online here at Music Business Worldwide.
His words will join that of fellow regular and respected MBW columnists such as Cherie Hu, Peter Robinson and Midia Research founder/MD Mark Mulligan.
“As MBW ramps up our ambition and investment in world-leading music business editorial, the addition of Kieron is a perfect fit,” said MBW Founder and Publisher, Tim Ingham. “Kieron not only has unrivalled experience in – and an understanding of – the streaming playlisting space, he’s not afraid to share a controversial opinion or two!”
Donoghue said: “I’ve followed Music Business Worldwide since Tim launched it in 2015 and it’s the one publication I never fail to read from cover to cover. I’m over the moon to play a small part in its future and can’t wait to contribute alongside the rest of the team.”
In addition to its growing roster of quality columnists, MBW’s core editorial team includes Associate Publisher Dave Roberts, Deputy Editor Murray Stassen and Contributing Editor Rhian Jones.Music Business Worldwide
