Alfonso Perez-Soto & Michael LoBiondo join Warner Music’s corporate development team with M&A focus | Labels

Warner Music Group has made key appointments to its corporate development team across both recordings and publishing.

Alfonso Perez-Soto has been named EVP, corporate development, focusing on the Recorded Music division, while Michael LoBiondo has been appointed SVP, Corporate Development, focusing on publishing.

The pair report to Michael Ryan Southern, EVP, chief corporate development officer, who has led the company’s M&A activity globally since August.  

WMG has put mergers & acquisitions at the heart of its expansion strategy.

“The new set-up gives WMG a dealmaking expert for each side of the business, enabling the company to target potential investments and acquisitions across a range of music rights and technology that will help accelerate the growth of the business,” said a statement.

Perez-Soto has spent much of the last two decades at Warner Music, starting his career there by making deals in the fast-growing Latin American market during the late 2000s, and later taking on a broader business development role covering a wider range of emerging markets.  

Since 2018 he has served as Warner Music’s leader in the Emerging Markets division, with overall responsibility for Africa, Eastern Europe, India and the Middle East. “In that role, he designed and implemented a faster growth strategy based on M&A, geographical expansion and organic artistic success that significantly expanded Warner Music’s footprint in these rapidly expanding territories,” continued the statement.  

The leaders of Warner Music’s Emerging Markets territories who previously reported to Perez-Soto will now directly report to Simon Robson, president, EMEA, Recorded Music, WMG. 

Michael LoBiondo has served as head of business development for Warner Chappell Music since 2021. In that role he identified and executed strategic acquisitions and partnerships for the publisher’s frontline songwriters and repertoire of songs.  

He previously held a number of roles at WMG, supporting a variety of business development and digital initiatives, including the acquisition of Parlophone Label Group and a number of Series A music technology investments.

Michael Ryan Southern said: “I’m delighted that Alfonso and Michael have joined our corporate development team. They are tenacious and curious leaders with a deep understanding of the music industry and its key players. With these appointments, we now have a strong M&A machine working together to find opportunities for the entire WMG group. We’ve committed to grow WMG through a mixture of organic and M&A activity. Now we’ve got a dedicated dealmaking beacon for each set of rights that’ll enable us to continue to improve our service to artists and songwriters.”

Alfonso Perez-Soto said: “I want to thank MRS and Robert for the opportunity to lead this initiative. As proven during my last six years leading Emerging Markets, proper corporate development is an expedited way to achieve growth in revenue; access to catalogs and new rosters; acquire local know-how in territories and music genres; provide artist services; and bring in executive talent.  We added human factors to the financial factor, and the idea is to bring that experience to the whole Warner Recorded Music ecosystem so that we push this successful formula on a global basis.”

Michael LoBiondo said: “Guy and Carianne have been tremendous partners and champions of strategic deals that create new opportunities for songwriters. I look forward to continuing this work in service of songwriters with support across the entire organization, and with collaboration of colleagues in recorded music as well.” 

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