David Driessen Appointed Chief Commercial Officer at Downtown Music to Drive Global Growth and Partnerships

03 September 2024 - Press release

 

• Leading streamlined global licensing and services solutions across +150 countries to help Downtown’s creators and businesses thrive 

 

Downtown Music (Downtown), the world's leading independent service provider to the global music industry, has today announced the promotion of David Driessen to Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). 

As CCO, Driessen will strengthen Downtown’s position as the premier partner for more than 4 million creators and 5,000 businesses, expand its global market share, and drive revenue across the company’s four divisions: Publishing, Distribution, Artist & Label Services and Royalties & Financial Services. Based in New York, he will continue to report to Pieter van Rijn, CEO of Downtown Music.

Driessen’s promotion is an expansion of his previous role as Downtown Music’s Chief Business Officer where he played an integral role on the leadership team, driving growth and helping to maximize value for the company, its clients and partners. Previously, he served as Chief Commercial Officer at FUGA, where he helped scale the company’s operations while overseeing overall commercial strategy. 

Building out Downtown’s Licensing and Partnership opportunities for the company’s more than 50 million music assets will be a core focus in Driessen’s new role. With cross-rights catalogs and new licensing models proliferating, his top priority is ensuring that his team is uniquely positioned to leverage these opportunities and drive increased revenue for its clients. By doing so, Driessen’s licensing and partnerships team will ensure that Downtown’s clients and artists receive everything they’ve earned through Downtown’s industry-leading royalties and payments technology. 

Under Driessen, Downtown's VP of Product and Services Strategy — Harmen Hemminga — will take a holistic view of licensing by adding it to his remit and integrating it with Downtown’s first-mover product and services strategy

”David’s leadership has been a key driver of Downtown’s success, and his promotion to Chief Commercial Officer comes at an exciting time for the company, having recently integrated our business-to-business and creator-focused operations into a single company,” said Downtown Music CEO Pieter van Rijn. “His commitment to our artists, clients and DSP partners positions us to continue unlocking value for our many partners across the global music industry.”

“Downtown is relentlessly focused on connecting artists with audiences, providing technology and services to music companies, and making sure they get paid what they deserve, as quickly as possible. It sounds simple, but getting there requires a lot of hard work behind the scenes," said David Driessen, Downtown's Chief Commercial Officer. "When artists, labels, and other rights holders trust Downtown, they know they have a partner who is deeply committed to their success.”

Driessen’s promotion follows Downtown’s recent completion of its integration strategy which merged CD Baby’s operations into Downtown, positioning the company’s full spectrum of services as the leading global platform for creators and businesses to navigate the modern music industry. Downtown now supports over 4 million artists and 5,000 business clients in 150 countries, who collectively generated more than 1.5 trillion streams across major platforms in 2023.