The 33-year-old scion of one of Europe’s most powerful media families is to take the helm of the music label BMG as its parent company Bertelsmann grooms its next generation of leaders.
Thomas Coesfeld will take over in July from outgoing chief executive Hartwig Masuch, who has presided over the music group since 2008 and made it into one of the most successful arms of the German publishing conglomerate that also owns Penguin Random House and broadcasting group RTL.
Coesfeld and his brother Carsten, who was last year appointed CEO of Bertelsmann’s investment group, are the seventh generation of the dynasty that founded the company in 1835.
BMG, which is a European rival to the US music groups of Universal, Warner and Sony, said that the appointment would bring forward a long-planned change of leadership at the division that had originally been scheduled for January next year.
It added that the 69-year-old Masuch had requested an earlier departure due to his own personal plans for the future but that he would remain associated with Bertelsmann in an advisory capacity until 2026.
Thomas Rabe, Bertelsmann’s CEO, described him as “a great music entrepreneur” who had built a new type of music company.
Masuch said he was “leaving on a high note — and in the firm conviction that with Thomas Coesfeld and his management team, a new generation will successfully lead the music company into a new era”.
Bertelsmann sold its old music publishing business to Universal Music in 2006 for €1.63bn and then started from scratch two years later under Masuch.
Since then, it has grown into one of the most thriving arms of the Bertelsmann group — which earned revenues of more than €20bn last year — as it pursued an aggressive strategy of acquiring music labels and catalogues with the backing of the US private equity firm KKR.
The Berlin-based music group, which counts Rita Ora and Kylie Minogue among its artists and owns back catalogues including those of Mick Jagger, Roger Waters and Tina Turner, enjoyed the fastest growth in its history last year, increasing revenues by 31 per cent to €866mn. Operating profits after earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation were €195mn.
Coesfeld, a former McKinsey consultant, joined the family business in 2016. He became deputy chief financial officer at BMG in 2020 before becoming chief financial officer the following year.
His most immediate goals are likely to be maintaining the pace of growth and reaching a target of achieving annual revenues of €1bn.
Alice Enders, a music industry expert at the consultancy Enders Analysis, said Masuch was a legend in the music industry whose “shoes may be hard to fill”. But she said that, as a former CFO, Coesfeld understood the business “extremely well”. She described him as a “good choice” to continue the “sound financial management” at BMG.
Coesfeld and his brother are widely seen within Bertelsmann as being prepared to take over the leadership of the family-owned media empire from Rabe, who has served as chief executive since 2002. His contract is due to expire in 2026.
The siblings are the grandsons of the late Reinhard Mohn, who turned a provincial printing house that began life publishing bibles into a global media participant. Mohn’s son Christoph, a child of his second marriage, is the chair of Bertelsmann’s supervisory board. The Coesfeld brothers are Reinhard Mohn’s grandchildren from his first relationship.
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