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Universal Music Shakeup: Def Jam, Polydor, Interscope Execs to Exit as Company Completes 2024 Restructure Plan
Def Jam chairman/CEO Tunji Balogun, Polydor president Ben Mortimer and Interscope head of pop/rock A&R Sam Riback are among those leaving.
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The Universal Music Group (UMG) has initiated the final phase of a three-part restructuring and cost-cutting plan first announced in 2024, with several high-profile executives set to exit the company, sources tell Billboard. The company announced internally today (Oct. 14) that those who will be leaving their current posts include Ben Mortimer, president of Polydor Records in the U.K.; Tunji Balogun, chairman/CEO of Def Jam Recordings; Nicole Wyskoarko, president, head of urban a&r at Interscope Geffen A&M; Sam Riback, co-president and head of pop/rock A&R at Interscope Geffen A&M; Rebecca Allen, chief artist and strategy officer at UMG U.K.; Mark Crossingham, managing director of UMG Ireland; Hannah Neaves, president of UM Recordings UK; and Ivo Sacchi, managing director of UMG in Switzerland and Austria, sources say. Some, like Neaves and Allen, will take on consultancies with the company instead, and others, like Balogun, will be finishing out their roles for the rest of the year. Other senior executives are also expected to be part of the cuts, which began this week. Republic Records CEO Jim Roppo will also be leaving the company as part of the leadership changes.
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Some UMG executives will be taking on new or expanded roles as part of the shake-up. This includes Tyler Arnold, chairman/CEO of Mercury, and Jeffrey Remedios, president/CEO of Republic Collective, taking on new leadership roles at Republic Records, effective immediately. Island Records’ co-CEOs Imran Majid and Justin Eshak will expand their roles within the East Coast labels, and Laura Carter, Ramon Alvarez-Smikle and Michelle An will take on broader leadership roles at Interscope Geffen A&M. Nickie Owen will take on an expanded role as president of global marketing at UMG U.K., Ulf Zick will take over UMG’s operations in Switzerland and Austria, and Nick Younger will take over as managing director of UMG Ireland. It is unclear exactly what some of these new roles will look like, but they are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
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These layoffs and departures are a continuation of the cost-cutting plan announced in 2024, sources say. As part of a 2024 earnings call, UMG called the plan a “strategic organizational redesign” that would result in 250 million euros ($271 million) in annual savings “by the end of 2026.” At the time, the company said the reorganization would include reductions of 75 million euros ($81.3 million) in 2024 and 125 million euros ($135.5 million) in 2025. That also involved a corporate restructure that saw the company shift into a loose East Coast-West Coast alignment, with the former reorganizing under the REPUBLIC umbrella headed by Monte Lipman and the latter under the Interscope Capitol branding led by John Janick.
In late September, Universal Music Canada let go of about 6%-7% of its workforce there, including roles in communications, marketing, A&R, label partnerships and administration. That included senior roles at the label, with at least one with a vp title and another with a senior manager title.
A spokesperson from UMG said of the staff changes: “Our consistent success has been built on our ability to anticipate industry changes, act early to better serve all our artists and songwriters, and capture opportunities in music’s fastest-growing areas. Our industry-leading investment in artist development has always guided that work and will continue to do so. We’re bringing in new skills and technology and connecting expertise across our teams to deliver greater global impact and greater efficiency. Where we have made the difficult decision to remove certain roles, we are deeply grateful for the contributions of the people leaving us.”
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The company’s move comes just a week after Barclays upgraded the rating it has on UMG’s stock to overweight — similar to a buy rating in the U.S. — based on its expectation that UMG will cut costs in the near term and benefit from Spotify’s AI remixing tool in the slightly longer term.
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Multiple sources have also told Billboard that, in recent weeks, the company had already been tightening its purse strings. While there is no official policy across the whole of UMG, several of its labels and its publishing arm, Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), had been instructed to put off unnecessary spending for the rest of the year, more than a dozen sources tell Billboard, while executive travel and expenses have been reduced.
With UMG’s stock price down nearly 33% so far this year, financial analysts say the company is likely limiting expenses to protect cash flow and profit margins following the close of its acquisition of Downtown Music Group.
“They’re feeling a bit of pressure to show investors that they can manage the business efficiently,” says TD Cowen financial analyst Doug Cruetz, adding that Downtown gives UMG a long-term strategic advantage but dilutes its profit margins in the near-term. “Cost growth [excluding the Downtown acquisition] was high, and so margins ex-Downtown were not up, and that’s not what people were expecting to see at this point.”
While the AI bonanza has driven major U.S. stock indexes to record highs this year, several of the largest publicly traded media and entertainment companies, including Disney, Netflix, Comcast and Spotify, have seen their share prices decline by between 6.5% and 22% year to date. Live entertainment companies like Live Nation are having a standout year; however, the stock prices of UMG and, to a lesser extent, Warner Music Group, are both down for the year.
UMG’s share price, which hit an all-time low of 13.93 euros ($15.49) per share on Sept. 10, fell by around 25% on July 31 after the company reported underwhelming subscription streaming growth and a steep decline in net profitability, in part due to the completion of its acquisition of Downtown Music Group in a $775 million deal.
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The stock also had a rocky period in the spring, just before former UMG board member and billionaire activist investor Bill Ackman’s investment company Pershing Capital proposed merging UMG with a SPAC and moving the label’s stock market listing from the Netherlands to New York. UMG’s board rejected the offer on May 29, saying the complex structure, which limited existing shareholders’ equity, fundamentally undervalued UMG.
Pershing subsequently sold more than 1.45 billion euros worth of UMG stock, causing UMG’s share price to sink to a low on June 4 of 17.74 euros — still above Ackman’s take-over offer price, but down 7.6% from that morning. UMG said in a statement that day that it bought back 14.2 million shares from what Pershing put on the market.
UMG does not disclose how much it spends on artist promotions for new releases. But in its 2025 annual report, the company said it spent more than 400 million euros on royalty advance payments and more than 850 million euros on investing activities.
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“Major labels are still very high [capital expenditure] heavy — there’s a lot of overhead,” says David Schulhof, veteran music industry executive and investor and CEO of the global music industry ETF MUSQ. “There’s a lot of frontline business risk that investors don’t like, and they’re questioning that. Why are there cuts? Clearly because they’re spending too much.”
In the 2024 announcement, UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge called the restructure a “cut to grow” strategy, in which the company reorganized its recorded music division, culling jobs in areas like publicity, radio promotion, synch, international, digital, business development and A&R. Sources tell Billboard that UMG is expected to rehire for multiple positions in different areas.
Similarly to the current budget cuts, not all labels were affected equally during that round of layoffs, which industry insiders have attributed to the variation in the labels’ financial performances. Grainge said at the time the cuts were necessary to give labels “greater flexibility and speed,” adding, “To put it simply, we’re creating the blueprint to the music company and the labels of the future.”
Those cuts also came amid an industry-wide molting as each of the major label groups went through significant layoffs as they attempted to restructure themselves to better deal with the changes in the industry, particularly given the rapid expansion of AI. Warner Music Group in particular went through several painful cost-cutting layoffs and reorganizations over the past five years in pursuit of hundreds of millions in savings; Sony also went through layoffs and a reorganization, though the extent of its cuts and changes is less well-known.
Still, the music business — and the records business in particular — is often cyclical, which can be difficult for outside investors used to steady returns and regular quarter-by-quarter growth.
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