On The Move: Virgin Music Group Taps Pieter van Rijn as COO, Sony Music Publishing Names New CFO

Each week, NIF & ROSTR tracks all the industry moves you need to know about. Promotions, hirings, farewells - have one you want to share? Click here.

Virgin Music Group has completed its acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings, naming Downtown CEO Pieter van Rijn as COO of VMG.

Sony Music Publishing promoted Greg Prata to CFO, effective March 31, succeeding Tom Kelly who is retiring after a 35-year career. Prata has been with Sony since 2012 and will oversee all financial ops globally, reporting to chairman/CEO Jon Platt.

AEG International promoted John Langford to President, APAC, effective April 1, where he'll lead the company's Asia-Pacific venue and real estate expansion. Langford has been with AEG since 2016, most recently serving as EVP of Venues.

Various Artists Management made a wave of senior appointments at its London HQ, naming Rebecca Dixon Global Head of Marketing & Strategy, Kayleigh Ramchand-Bentley General Manager UK, Kelley Fox Sr. International A&R, and promoting George Shepherd to Associate Director.

Boutique management company Culture Wave announced the integration of Polarizer Management, adding Ryan Cunningham and Mike Bingham, promoted Rachel Hacken to Artist Manager, and brought on several new hires across touring, day-to-day, and digital marketing.

Secretly Distribution named longtime COO Chris Welz as Partner after two decades with the company, where he's helped build its global physical operations and digital services into a business now exceeding tens of billions of streams.

Suno named former Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota as Chief Commercial Officer, where he'll lead the AI music company's commercial strategy, industry relationships, and platform partnerships.

• Lodovico Pagani appointed Head of A&R at Warner Chappell Italy where the publisher also promoted Francesca Rossi to Head of Legal and brought on Giacomo Domenichelli as A&R Manager.

• Oli Welch has been appointed Head of A&R at dance music label Ministry of Sound.

• Ryan Tedder's Runner Music named Julia Betley as Head of Sync, joining from Warner Records where she served as SVP of Creative Sync Licensing.

• Veteran artist manager Gary Borman has announced his retirement and the closure of his management company Borman Entertainment, 50 years after its inception.

• Cobra Agency hired Christina Austin (formerly UTA) and Stephen Moss (founder of Echelon Artists) as agents in the UK, as the Austria-based rock and metal booking agency expands its international footprint.

• Community Music (UNIFIED Music Group) tapped startup investor Matt Allen as Head of Artist Capital to expand the Australian indie's in-house artist funding program.

• Milestone Collective promoted Nick Weakley to Social Media Manager.

Don't forget to check out our job board here.