BMG Production Music Appoints New MDs in UK, Benelux

BMG Production Music (BMGPM) has promoted senior management executives Scott Doran and Paul Gulmans following a successful two years that has seen company revenue double.

Marking the first major changes since the promotion of John Clifford to global EVP and managing director, Doran succeeds Clifford in running BMGPM’s UK business as he is appointed managing director BMGPM UK. Gulmans moves into a new combined role, managing director Benelux & VP int’l business development, as current BMGPM benelux MD Laura Bell has decided to step down at the end of September, leaving the business to focus on her family.

Doran and Gulmans will report to Clifford who is based at BMGPM’s global headquarters in London.

Doran co-founded Altitude Music that was acquired by BMG in 2016. He worked across marketing and business development for BMGPM and in 2018 became director of Altitude Custom, a new BMGPM film and TV commissioned scoring service.

Gulmans previously served as MD of Music and Images Publishing in the Netherlands where he progressed the company to become the market leader in the territory and facilitated its expansion in Germany. Music and Images was acquired by Talpa Music in 2012 and BMG in 2014, and in 2017 Gulmans moved into an international role as VP systems & licensing for BMGPM.

Bell joined BMG Talpa in 2015 as a freelance Sync coordinator, quickly moving into a full-time role as Sync Manager. In 2017, she progressed to sales & marketing director for BMGPM while remaining head of Sync and soon became managing director for BMGPM Benelux in 2018.

John Clifford, EVP and managing director (Global) said: “Scott is well placed in his new role to drive our UK production music company forward and execute on our UK business objectives while Paul’s extensive international production music catalogue network and experience in successful sales strategies are a great fit for his new combined responsibilities to boost our local business across Benelux and further afield internationally. Laura has been an integral part of BMG’s production music business in Europe - we thank her for her essential contribution and wish her all the best for the future.”

“This is an exciting time for BMGPM having doubled our global revenue and EBITDA in the last two years. These management changes form a key part of the continued evolution of BMGPM as a global player in the production music sector.”

Since its worldwide launch in 2017, BMGPM has acquired AXS Production Music (France) Immediate Music (US), Big Bang & Fuzz (Australia), Deep East Music (UK), Telemusic (France) and launched custom music business ‘Altitude Custom’, bringing together BMGPM and BMG talent. This successful period of growth has also seen the worldwide relaunch of the BMGPM brand and the development of business with new clients including Ninja Tune and Red Bull.