Another senior level executive at Warner Music is standing down, with Warner Music UK COO Isabel Garvey announcing she will depart the major at the end of the year. Her announcement follows last month’s news that UK CEO Tony Harlow is leaving the company at the end of this month, and is part of the ongoing downsizing of the major’s workforce, including at the upper levels of the business.
In a memo to Warner’s UK employees Garvey says she is “excited by the prospect of taking on new challenges” and “believes that this is the right decision for me and for the company”. She adds, “I’ve really enjoyed being part of this stellar team. Through a period of significant change, I’ve been so impressed by your resilience and adaptability, and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved together”.
Warner Music has been through significant downsizing and restructuring ever since Robert Kyncl joined as CEO of the global business in 2023. Earlier this year the company announced plans to save another $300 million a year in overall costs, with $170 million of those savings coming from job cuts. Part of that is being achieved by slashing back senior management.
That has involved merging some of the top jobs at Warner, as well as integrating the major’s UK and Canadian labels more closely with its US recordings business, and in doing so reducing the number of senior execs in those two markets.
As a result, bosses of the Atlantic and Warner labels in the UK will now report directly into the Atlantic and Warner label groups in the US, boosting the power and influence of US-based execs like Elliot Grainge, who leads the Atlantic Music Group, and Aaron Bay-Schuck and Tom Corson, who head up the Warner Records Group.
The major insists that restructuring its label operations in this way will make it easier for artists signed in the UK and Canada to pursue opportunities in the US, though some fear it will make the UK and Canadian labels inferior offshoots of the American business.
When Harlow’s departure was announced last month, an official statement said that Warner UK departments other than the frontline labels would be overseen by Simon Robson, Warner’s President for EMEA, working “in partnership with Isabel Garvey”. Obviously Robson will now perform that oversight on his own.
Garvey’s memo yesterday explained that, with her COO role axed, and “our label heads joining the global management teams of Atlantic and Warner Records”, the “central functions will all be led by Simon, ensuring the new structure is simple and the lines of accountability are clear”.
Robson sent his own message to Warner UK staff following Garvey’s announcement, thanking the departing COO for her “tremendous contribution to our business in the UK over recent years”, before adding, “Isabel shaped our approach and culture at a time of seismic change in the industry, and Warner Music has benefited enormously from her strategic thinking and fresh perspective”.
