Bob Valentine is a music business veteran and, since July 2023, the CEO of Concord.
Prior to becoming CEO of Concord, Valentine was President of the Nashville-headquartered music company, which operates across music publishing, recorded music, and theatricals.
Bob Valentine: Career history
Bob Valentine joined Norman Lear’s Act III Communications in 1999 when it acquired Concord Records.
While working for Lear and his business partner, Hal Gaba, Valentine helped to negotiate the purchase of Concord Records, and subsequently served as liaison between Act III and Concord.
In 2001, Valentine left Act III to join Fox Entertainment’s television business development group, focusing on corporate M&A and business development initiatives at Fox and its parent company News Corp.
In 2005, he returned to Concord to become CFO and served in that capacity at the company until 2021, when he was named President.
In July 2023, Valentine became CEO of Concord, succeeding Scott Pascucci.
Bob Valentine started his career as a financial analyst in Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division.
He received his M.B.A. from U.C.L.A.’s Anderson School of Management and his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame.
During his career spanning nearly two decades at Concord and its predecessor entities, Valentine has helped to deploy over $1.5bn of equity and debt capital to acquire music and theatrical rights and has been a key contributor in driving Concord’s growth from an $8m/year jazz record label to a $500m+ revenue global music company.
Bob Valentine: Professional philosophy
Speaking to Music Business Worldwide in a 2023 interview, Valentine said: “I’ve always thought of myself as helping to build a real music business here [at Concord], because that’s what we are – not a fund, a real music business, running its own global labels, music publishing operation, theatrical licensing company, and a fledging film & TV division that happens to be backed by a pension fund.
“I’ve always thought of myself as helping to build a real music business here [at Concord], because that’s what we are – not a fund, a real music business.”
Bob Valentine, Concord
“My intention is to focus on the efforts of this company to be a creative force.”
He added: “Concord really doesn’t need to do any deals for scale anymore, but if a certain catalog or opportunity is of such significant quality or fills a gap we don’t feel we have covered we’ll potentially be interested. But we’re in no hurry to buy things just for the sake of growing.”Music Business Worldwide