NEW YORK (VIP NEWS) — The chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group’s recorded music division abruptly resigned on Monday, saying he would stay through the end of September and giving no insight about where he was headed.
A source close to Cohen tells Confidenti@l exclusively that the 52-year-old music mogul, who has worked with the Beastie Boys and Foxy Brown, has been secretly developing a talent management company for the past two years while working at Warner. Now he has “decided the time is right to move forward,” the source says.
“As WMG enters its next chapter, I’m ready to begin mine,” Tory Burch’s longtime beau mysteriously hinted in an internal memo to staffers. “I can’t yet announce what I’ll be doing next; I can only say that it will be something where I can work my entrepreneurial muscles and partner with artists.”
Cohen, who also worked with the Black Keys, Bruno Mars and Cee Lo Green during his eight-year tenure at Warner Music, is so private about his new business venture that the insider says he only refers to his new company by a “nonsensical” code name in emails and phone calls.
“He’s working to bridge the gap between label and management,” says a second source, indicating Cohen wants to help record companies and bands work together more cohesively. “He has for some time now.”
In his memo to staff, Cohen said he’s “always been an entrepreneur at heart.”
A Warner Music insider supports Cohen’s move, saying, “He’s never been a corporate guy and his role here was becoming more and more corporate.”
Cohen joined Warner in 2004 after its acquisition from AOL Time Warner, and was recruited by former CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. Prior to that, he was chief executive at Universal Music Group’s Island Def Jam and a co-founder of Rush Management, along with Russell Simmons. –According to NY Daily News
