Aging CEOs, Ambitious Nepo Babies and a Tech Revolution: Succession in the Music Biz

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2 days ago

The business of music long has been an incestuous one, even when the players aren't related. But some of the leaders of today's recorded music industry — 84 percent of which is housed under the three major label groups, Universal, Warner and Sony — actually are. When Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of UMG, took the reins in 2011, his son, Elliot, had barely graduated college. Today, the junior Grainge is running Warner's Atlantic Records (home to Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and Bruno Mars) alongside another so-called 'nepo baby,' WMG's billionaire majority owner Len Blavatnik's 27-year-old son, Val Blavatnik, who is a member of WMG's board of directors with an increasing presence at the company.
Elliot was brought in at age 30 in late 2024 to turn around the label's declining market share (from 10 percent at the end of 2020, down to 5.7 percent last year). While the results of his appointment are yet to be assessed, his track record for breaking acts on platforms like TikTok at his record label 10K Projects — where his successes included Ice Spice and the controversial 6ix9ine — preceded him. (WMG bought a majority stake in 10K in 2023.)
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'Everyone in the industry is doing the same stuff,' Elliot told The Wall Street Journal earlier this year. 'I'm not doubting any of the human capabilities of these great guys, women and companies — however, they grew up in the fax machine era.'
Elliot's ascent to CEO brought with it some upheaval — namely the exit of Julie Greenwald, a beloved executive who had shepherded the Atlantic labels for 20 years. Now, the industry's eyes are on the bigger Warner picture. Specifically, the company's succession line.
THR talked to nearly a dozen executives across management, recorded music and publishing — all of whom requested anonymity to speak freely on the matter — who parroted a common refrain: that CEO Robert Kyncl, who joined WMG from YouTube in 2022, may be nearing the end of his run. (A rep for WMG says 'these are just totally false rumors,' declining further comment.)
While not everyone had the same theory about who would take over if that happened, the most likely candidate, most agreed, was Val Blavatnik. 'Len will throw his kid in the seat as fast as he can,' one artist manager says. 'It's the succession. Warner's like a vanity [asset] for Len.'
Adds a top manager: 'Val and Elliot are very close. It would make sense to bring Elliot in so he could sit and see for a while and help Val.'
Another insider puts it more bluntly: 'This has always been a dynastic play for Len and Val.'
To be fair, Kyncl is an easy target for rumor fodder given that he's the only CEO with a background in tech and media rather than music, and the music industry — with its less conventional work environment and reliance on intangibles like golden 'ears' — hasn't typically embraced outsiders. Coming off an underwhelming Q1 earnings report (WMG's stock price is down 16 percent since this time last year) also makes it easy for onlookers to put Kyncl under the microscope even if the chatter is unfounded. A change would be somewhat ironic, though, at a time when AI is poised to upend the music business if a digital native wouldn't have the mandate to navigate those rough waters.
While insiders are turned toward Warner, it's worth remembering the fickle and cyclical nature of the music business, where hits still remain the top currency. With enough of them, the conversation could change. Currently WMG holds five of the Top 10 slots on Spotify's Global 50 chart as Alex Warren's 'Ordinary' (Atlantic) remains the biggest song in the world, Warner Records' Sombr hold two spots, 'La Plena – W Sound 05″ out of Warner Music Latina is seventh, and Atlantic's Rosé and Bruno Mars are in eighth with Apt.'
If the past tells us anything, it's that seismic technological shifts have often served as a precursor for a changing of the guard at the record companies. In the early days of Napster and peer-to-peer file-sharing, Doug Morris (and his Universal colleagues, including Jimmy Iovine, who would go on to sell his Beats by Dr. Dre headphone line to Apple for $3 billion in 2014) was tasked with fending off the death of the CD, to mixed results. The era of digital downloads followed, making Apple's iTunes the world's biggest music store. Still, the 2000s would see year-over-year declines as album sales (typically $9.99 and up) ceded to song sales at 99 cents.
By 2011, just ahead of the streaming era, Lucian Grainge spearheaded Universal's acquisition binge, beginning with the catalog-rich EMI (bought for $1.9 billion in 2012, not coincidentally the year Spotify launched in the U.S.) and continuing to the present, where its holdings now claim two-thirds of music's global market share.
Today, Grainge, who netted handsomely when the company public in 2021, is the longest-tenured CEO across the three label groups. Sony Music Group chairman Rob Stringer is a not-too-distant second. After working at the company all of his professional life, he replaced Morris as chief executive in 2017 and has gone on to see some formidable wins, including record-breakers like Adele, and culture-shifting albums by Beyonce and Tyler, the Creator, to say nothing of bringing to the world Harry Styles.
Is another change on the horizon? It's certainly a topic making the rounds as executives and industry insiders question when the old guard will pass the torch to a younger generation gearing up for the next era. Some wonder if Grainge will continue to occupy the top seat past his contract-end date in May 2028, though others suggest it's still premature to speculate on Grainge's successor as he's still very active in the company and has laid out a vision for the company for the years ahead. Still, succession has been discussed at UMG board meetings, and a source familiar with the agenda scoffs at the idea of going outside the UMG family in the future.
Indeed, insiders and reports have cited Republic Collective CEO Monte Lipman (who runs the label group with his brother, Avery, its co-president and COO) and Interscope chairman/CEO John Janick as logical candidates from Universal's U.S. operations, but leaders in other territories shouldn't be counted out, says a source. 'There's a deep bench of internal players who are more than qualified to step into this position.'
As succession names float, a pattern becoming more apparent is the lack of women helming labels contending to take the top C-suite jobs. For a time just a few years ago, that picture looked brighter as Michelle Jubelirer was chairwoman and CEO of Capitol Music Group, Greenwald was chairwoman and CEO of Atlantic Music Group, Ethiopia Habtemariam was CEO of Motown and Sylvia Rhone was CEO and Chairwoman of Epic. (The publishing side fares slightly better as Jody Gerson logs a decade as CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group while Carianne Marshall has been Warner Chappell's COO since 2018.) 'Old white men have had a choke hold on the industry for years,' says one female executive, who blames the lack of women on the industry's inability to properly groom talent. 'It's pretty pathetic of the labels, but it's not surprising. … And now there's been such a revolt around DEI, everyone has permission to just do the easy thing and hire the average white man instead.' (Rhone is the sole remaining female label head, but at 73, her retirement has become a perennial musing.)
There are signs of hope under the conglomerate umbrella, however, with a slew of next-gen execs in the wings. At UMG's Island Records (home to Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan), Imran Majid and Justin Eshak were named co-CEOs in 2021; at Def Jam (Justin Bieber, Big Sean), Tunji Balogun came in as chairman CEO in 2022; and at Mercury (Post Malone), 32-year-old Tyler Arnold assumed the chairman and CEO title in March. Meanwhile at Sony, new leadership for Arista (Maneskin) was just announced with Clio Massey, daughter of outgoing chairman David Massey, transitioning to co-president alongside Matt D'Arduini. And WMG's own Warner Records has seen its parent company's most consistent recent successes between Zach Bryan, Benson Boone and Teddy Swims under the watch of co-chairman and CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck who, at 43, is among the more senior of the bunch.
Elliot Grainge, now 31, certainly tips the scale towards a younger, more nimble record executive less constrained by the old-boys-club way of doing things. But when that elder is your father and mentor, the nepotism-whispers will linger until he's had enough hits of his own. And in a business where names like Azoff, Davis and Wasserman all evoke the nepo tag, the song remains the same.
'Imagine if Bob Iger had a son who went to work at a competing company — it would never happen,' says one prominent industry lifer. 'In music, it's like, 'Oh well, we're fucking morons.' Time and time again, these CEOs refuse to leave or to do what's right as far as their corporate responsibility.'
A version of this story appeared in the June 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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