Warner Music Center East has a brand new normal supervisor, with Ahmed Nureni chosen to interchange a departing Moe Hamzeh. Nuhreni arrives from music distribution firm Qanawat Music, which WMG acquired earlier this 12 months, and can proceed to be primarily based in Dubai — although WMME’s headquarters and employees will stay in Beirut.
Nuhreni, who’ll report back to Alfonso Perez-Soto, president of rising markets at Warner Recorded Music, will proceed to run Qanawat in tandem together with his duties at Warner. In an announcement, he mentioned his “twin function will enable me to harness synergies from each companies and be considerate and strategic in the best way we develop Warner Music Center East’s artist roster,” including, “There’s a lot artistic potential in our area and we’re solely simply starting to faucet into it.”
WMME’s mandate is sprawling, overlaying a complete of 17 markets: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Hamzeh helped launch Warner Music Center East in 2018; the corporate now says he’s transferring on to pursue different initiatives in music. He had beforehand been head of content material at digital streaming platform m.media and, earlier in his profession, labored at Temple Leisure and Virgin Megastores.
Perez-Soto referred to as Nureni a “good exec who combines an incredible ear for music with a superb strategic thoughts,” including, “With the help of our superb group in Beirut, he’ll champion artists from the area and assist them join with a worldwide viewers. I’d additionally prefer to thank Moe Hamzeh for all his superb help during the last 5 years and want him good luck in his subsequent adventures.”
Simon Robson, president of Worldwide at Warner Recorded Music, referred to as the Center East and North Africa a “precedence marketplace for us” as “highlighted by our accelerated exercise in MENA within the final 18 months” — in early 2021 WMG invested within the area’s largest indie label, Rotana Music — “however we have now additional formidable development plans, which Ahmed will assist us ship.”
