September 18, 2010

By ED CHRISTMAN

By appointing Richard Stumpf—the former senior VP of creative services and marketing at Cherry Lane—as president of Imagem Music USA, Imagem CEO Andre De Raaff completes his American leadership team. Stumpf will oversee the company's pop initiative and join Ted Chapin, who heads Imagem's theatrical operation as president/executive director of Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Zizi Mueller, who's in charge of the company's classical arm as senior VP of Boosey & Hawkes.

1 What's the situation that you're coming into with your new role at Imagem?

I will be starting and building out Imagem's U.S. pop presence. To date, Imagem is primarily based in Europe, with a fully operational office in the U.K., which has done some signings. So we have some rights [for acts] like Phil Collins and Genesis and newer groups like Temper Trap. The birth of their pop side happened when BMG/Zomba spun off some of their pop stuff in Europe.

2 How will you grow Imagem's U.S. pop operation?

I'll be bringing in all sorts of talent, across the board. Our growth will come in part organically, but there are catalogs out there that we are looking at as well. So it could grow fairly quickly, although I do want to grow it at the right pace, because the key to the whole thing is servicing the writers.

I am hoping to use the same philosophy I used for building out Cherry Lane. It's not always about volume; it should be more about the quality. When you bring in the right talent you don't have to oversign.

3 What impresses you about the company?

What I really like is they already have two of the best publishing companies in the world, Boosey & Hawkes on the classical side and Rodgers & Hammerstein on the theatrical side. So they are extremely strong there and to build out a third tier, alongside those brands, is exciting to me.

Culturally there are three different brands under one umbrella, which will be a challenge. But that challenge is the fun part. What's also nice is because there is such a broad spectrum of music, when it comes to the synchronization side of things, the synch team gets to pitch a lot of different types of music. So Imagem is deep without being too big.

4 Do you foresee Imagem operating in the hip-hop world?

Yeah, I think so. What is considered pop is really a variety of contemporary genres. We have a few people here so we can handle a fair amount, but if we needed to, we would hire for different genres as it makes sense.

5 Can Imagem compete with other U.S. independents?

I do think we can compete, due to a combination of things. This company has a true independent spirit and it's backed up by strong financing. I believe, more than ever, that songwriters, from the developing ones to the top-level names, all want high levels of service. There are expectations on publishers now that haven't always been. They look at us as a marketing partner. We have to roll up our sleeves and dig in and that is where we will win the battles.

6 How has the market changed in the last year?

Importance continues to get placed on the synchronization world. In general, there have been advancements on the new media side of things, with the rates the [Copyright Royalty Board] came down with. These are all positives and it's only going to get better. The larger monetization event [around digital] is still a few years away, but if you own or control important copyrights, you will do very well.

In terms of the Web, that will happen thanks to things like the cloud models where there is some monthly fee that gets sliced up among the different content owners. We are inevitably moving that way—if you had asked me three years ago where we would be, I would have thought it would be a lot closer. But it will happen and when it does, it will be great.

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