MBW sources have told us that Russel Coultart, the global boss of Universal Music Group‘s direct-to-fan efforts, is exiting the major.
London-based Coultart has run UMG’s D2C/direct to fan/e-commerce business globally since 2013, when he was drafted into the company as part of the newly-acquired EMI.
Since this point, the exec has worked with the local UMG labels, marketing and e-commerce teams in multiple territories including the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, France – as well as the major’s central D2C team.
One of Coultart’s biggest projects at Universal has been replacing out of date e-commerce platforms used by UMG in the UK and Canada with a new in-house platform.
Before joining UMG, Coultart was Vice President for Direct to Consumer in Europe at EMI Music from 2010-2013.
Prior to this role, he was CEO of Digital Stores Ltd, which was sold to EMI after raising £750k in seed capital.
UMG is currently wrapping up a sustained six-month period of restructuring, which has seen job losses at the likes of Capitol Music Group in California and Universal Music Group International in London.Music Business Worldwide
