Downtown Music (Downtown) has promoted David Driessen to Chief Commercial Officer (CCO).
Based in New York, he will continue to report to Pieter van Rijn, CEO of Downtown Music.
According to Downtown, Driessen is tasked with expanding the company’s global market share and driving revenue across its four divisions: Publishing, Distribution, Artist and Label Services, and Royalties and Financial Services.
Driessen’s promotion expands on his previous role as Downtown Music’s Chief Business Officer, where he played a key role on the leadership team, as well as “driving growth and helping to maximize value for the company, its clients, and partners,” Downtown said on Tuesday (September 3).
Driessen previously served as Chief Commercial Officer at FUGA, where he helped scale the company’s operations while overseeing overall commercial strategy.
According to Downtown, building out Licensing and Partnership opportunities for the company’s “more than 50 million music assets will be a core focus in Driessen’s new role”.
Also according to Downtown, under Driessen, Downtown’s VP of Product and Services Strategy, Harmen Hemminga, “will take a holistic view of licensing” by adding it to his remit and integrating it with Downtown’s product and services strategy.
Driessen’s promotion follows Downtown’s recent completion of its integration strategy which merged CD Baby’s operations into Downtown.
Downtown claims to support over 4 million artists and 5,000 business clients in 150 countries, who, the company says, collectively generated more than 1.5 trillion streams across major platforms in 2023.
“David’s leadership has been a key driver of Downtown’s success, and his promotion to Chief Commercial Officer comes at an exciting time for the company.”
Pieter van Rijn, Downtown Music
“David’s leadership has been a key driver of Downtown’s success, and his promotion to Chief Commercial Officer comes at an exciting time for the company, having recently integrated our business-to-business and creator-focused operations into a single company,” said Downtown Music CEO Pieter van Rijn.
“His commitment to our artists, clients and DSP partners positions us to continue unlocking value for our many partners across the global music industry.”
“Downtown is relentlessly focused on connecting artists with audiences, providing technology and services to music companies, and making sure they get paid what they deserve, as quickly as possible.”
David Driessen, Downtown
David Driessen, Downtown’s Chief Commercial Officer, added: “Downtown is relentlessly focused on connecting artists with audiences, providing technology and services to music companies, and making sure they get paid what they deserve, as quickly as possible. It sounds simple, but getting there requires a lot of hard work behind the scenes,”
“When artists, labels, and other rights holders trust Downtown, they know they have a partner who is deeply committed to their success.”
Elsewhere at Downtown Music, in June, the company appointed Molly Neuman as President of its ‘Direct-to-Creator’ division, CD Baby.
Meanwhile, in May, the company launched a new division called Downtown Royalties & Financial Services (DR&FS), following its acquisition of royalty processing platform Curve Royalty Systems in January 2023.
Also in May, Downtown Music secured another $500 million of credit capacity from Bank of America to expand its services for independent artists and labels.
In July, Downtown Music Holdings was reported to be exploring a potential sale and that it had been in talks with private equity firms and at least one major music company.Music Business Worldwide
