Apple ‘Shuffles’ Its Music Execs
Credit: Alexander Shatov / Unsplash
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Apple’s Siri and robotics divisions aren’t alone in undergoing leadership changes. While both those divisions went through some wholesale reassignments, it seems Apple is also shuffling some new executives into senior leadership positions in the world of Apple Music.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has restructured the leadership of Apple Music, assigning two new co-heads under VP Oliver Schusser, whose responsibilities have been expanded over the past year.
While Schusser hasn’t technically gained a promotion — he’s still a vice president reporting to senior VP Eddy Cue, who heads up the entire services division — his scope has increased from overseeing Apple Music and the Beats brand to Apple TV+ and all of Apple’s sports initiatives.
That leaves less time for a tight focus on Apple Music, so longtime executive Rachel Newman and TikTok music veteran Ole Obermann have been brought in to help, co-managing Apple Music under Schusser’s overall leadership.
Schusser joined Apple in 2004 to help Eddy Cue expand iTunes into Europe, and continued working quietly behind the scenes to help with international efforts related to the App Store, iTunes, Apple Books, Podcasts, and other related services. In 2018, he was promoted to Vice President of Apple Music & International Content, becoming the first formal executive to lead Apple Music under Cue.
One of Schusser’s first initiatives was to form a new publishing division, leading to speculation that Apple was working on its own music label. Along those lines, he expanded Apple Music’s leadership, tagging former iTunes legal director Elena Segal to head things up as Global Director of Music Publishing and bringing in Lindsay Rothschild, who led songwriter and publisher relations for Google’s YouTube Music to become Head of Creative Services Music Publishing for North America.
In 2020, Schusser’s portfolio expanded further to become the de facto president of Beats after Luke Wood stepped down from that official role. Schusser didn’t take on the “president” title, per se, but instead became Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats.
Upon the departure of Apple VP Peter Stern in early 2023, Schusser’s responsibilities once again expanded. Stern was a VP who had long been seen as a potential successor to services boss Eddy Cue and has overseen the business side of Apple TV+ and iCloud, as well as the Apple One initiative. The Apple TV+ business was given to Schusser, although the creative development and production leadership remained unchanged. Stern’s other responsibilities were divided between Robert Kondrk, who led Apple’s services design teams, and another executive believed to be corporate development VP Adrian Perica.
Apple is also reportedly shuffling its government affairs team, placing the heads of Europe and Asia directly under Lisa Jackson, Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, one of the few non-senior VPs who report directly to CEO Tim Cook. This will put these two executives, Matt Browne and Elizabeth Hernandez, on the same level as US government affairs lead Tim Powderly rather than under Nick Nick Ammann, Apple’s vice president of global policy. Ammann, who also reports to Jackson, will oversee the heads of the China and India government affairs teams, Frank Fan and Virat Bhatia. Gurman adds that Ammann remains “Apple’s point person” for dealing with the Trump administration — at least in routine matters that don’t require CEO Tim Cook’s personal involvement.
