“I’m excited to help shape a comprehensive global strategy that addresses the needs of creators in both established and emerging markets. Understanding cultural differences and how the music industry is developing across international markets is essential to craft better opportunities and more equitable solutions. This decision further demonstrates Downtown’s commitment to international creators and its purpose to represent the interests of music creators across all genres, languages, and territories,” said David Alexander, SVP of New Markets for Downtown Music Holdings.
“David’s deep expertise building the largest independent music publisher on the African continent, his knowledge of the global music industry, and passion for supporting creators, makes him ideally suited to lead our new markets strategy. The added partnership and support from Heli, with his impressive track record growing international operations in Latin America and India, is an ideal compliment,” said Andrew Sparkler, EVP of Global Business Development for Downtown.
A long-standing advocate for creators’ rights across Africa, Alexander is a sought after expert on the African music market, who is frequently tapped as a speaker and guest columnist. Under Alexander’s leadership, Sheer has grown to be Africa’s largest independent music publisher and elevated the profile of African creators. Recently, works represented by Sheer were featured throughout the locally produced hit Netflix series Blood & Water, along with “Song of The Year” and “DJ of The Year” nominations for Sheer clients Skinny G and Dlala Thukzin, respectively. A 2021 Billboard International Power Player, he also serves as a non-executive director of SAMRO, Chairman of the Music Publishers Association of South Africa (MPA-SA), and Member of the Pop Bureaux of the ICMP and a Board member of the IMPF, among other affiliations.
Under Del Moral, CD Baby’s international operations have expanded to include India, South Africa, and Latin America. CD Baby currently represents nearly 200,000 Latin artists, including Dominican dembow artist El Alfa. Del Moral was named to Billboard’s Latin Power Players List in October 2020.
Downtown’s decision in April to focus exclusively on music services for creators and businesses at all stages, follows several significant investments into the creator and label services sector. In recent years, Downtown has acquired CD Baby®, AdRev®, DashGo, Soundrop® (Q1 2019); FUGA℠ (Q1 2020); Simbals℠ (Q2 2020), and Found.ee℠ (Q1 2021). Last year the company also established Downtown Neighbouring Rights℠, a stand-alone business unit dedicated specifically to performance royalties that represents clients such as the Estate of Ella Fitzgerald and Justin Bieber. Additionally, its music publishing administration platform, Songtrust® has expanded its royalty collections to cover 145 countries, and now represents more than 3 million songs and more than 350,000 songwriters.
About Downtown
Downtown Music Holdings (Downtown℠) is the leading global music services company. We help millions of creators, rights holders and their partners to manage their music as a business and get paid fairly for their work. We service more than 23 million music assets from more than 145 countries across six continents, including some of the world’s most well-known songs, from a catalog that spans 100 years of popular music, including music for film and television, and the single largest independent sound recording catalog in the industry. Our integrated platforms help democratize global music rights management and simplify the distribution, monetization, and promotion of creative works. Working with creators at every stage of their career, from emerging songwriters to iconic performers, our business model drives equity across the entire global music industry supply chain.
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