Music tech firm Utopia has announced the appointment of Roberto Neri as chief operating officer.
Neri reports directly to CEO Markku Makelainen at Utopia, which has over 100 employees and current offices in Zug, Helsinki, Stockholm, London and New York. London-based Neri will be responsible for commercial and business operations and building out the international office footprint.
The announcement follows Neri’s exit from Downtown Music Holdings, which recently sold the bulk of its copyrights to Concord. He served as EVP of business development at the publisher.
Neri has also served as chair of the Music Publishers Association, who he represented at the DCMS Committee inquiry into streaming.
According to today’s announcement, Utopia develops and builds solutions that “help the industry recognise and apply the true and full value of creator rights and subsequently increase payouts, bringing the entire life cycle of creator rights together from creation to monetisation”.
The company is building a technology platform to enable “accounting, transparency and efficiency”.
Roberto Neri said: “I am truly excited to be able to work with Markku and the team at Utopia. Joining a company with such great minds, all dedicated to helping every touch point across the music industry and enhancing value for creators is the perfect role for me. I love music, am wholly dedicated to the music industry and Utopia is the perfect place to provide a global solution that addresses some of the systemic inadequacies and pain points.
“The industry should fully compensate creators and those that represent their songs and the potential overall value is not currently being captured. Fair pay for every play is what we stand for. I look forward to helping grow the global team and to opening new offices. We will find more best in class executives to join the incredible team that has been put together to date.”
Utopia CEO Markku Makelainen said: “I’m excited to have Roberto join our ever-growing, amazing leadership team and help us make a lasting impact on global creator rights through Utopia. Roberto’s connections and positions of trust will tremendously enhance our reach in an industry we all love and are absolutely obsessed with making it the best it can possibly be."
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