Portfolio.
Willard Ahdritz. Kobalt
Kobalt Music Group is the leading global, independent music publishing and music services company. Kobalt offers copyright royalty administration, creative, licensing, label services (including distribution, marketing, product release management), and performing (neighbouring) rights management and other services to artists, songwriters and other content owners.
With seven offices worldwide and 150 employees, the company represents over 250,000 songs owned by many of the world’s most important artists, writers and companies including Paul McCartney and MPL Communications, 8 Mile Style (the copyrights of Eminem), LMFAO, No Doubt, Gotye, Max Martin, Tiësto, Dr. Luke, Shellback, Skrillex, Ryan Tedder, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan, Garbage, Bon Iver, Moby, Herbie Hancock, Dave Stewart, James Murphy, Joss Stone, among over 1,200 others. Billboard cover article »
Willard Ahdritz
Willard Ahdritz is the Founder/CEO of Kobalt Music Group Ltd. (Kobalt), the world’s fastest growing independent music publishing and music services company.
As an early champion for transparency and maximizing the value of music, Ahdritz launched Kobalt in 2000 with a new business model which applied strategies from changing industry structures and managing complex information flows to the global royalty collections and rights management process. Under his leadership, the company has grown to be a Top 5 publisher in the U.S. and No. 1 independent publisher in major markets such as the U.K. and Germany.
Ahdritz has more than 17 years experience in developing and running global music publishing and record label operations at Kobalt and at Sweden’s Telegram Records and Publishing (now part of Warner Music), as well as 8 years of corporate strategy and financial experience from his tenure at LEK Consulting. Ahdritz holds a B. Eng. And a M.Sc. in Finance and Accounting from New York University's Stern School of Business / Stockholm School of Economics. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). In 2009 Ahdritz received the BVCA’s Venture Capital backed CEO of the Year Award in London.
