BMG names Dobinson Group COO

SMOOTH OPERATOR: BMG has elevated John Dobinson from COO of BMG Chrysalis U.K, and Europe to Group COO, giving him worldwide responsibility for operations and administration functions in both the publishing and record sectors. Dobinson now has worldwide responsibility for all the glamorous stuff—copyright, royalties, contract administration, integration management, asset management, supply chain management and IT. He reports to Group CFO Maximilian Dressendoerfer (we kid you not). Dobinson’s seen it all—he did finance for Clive Calder at Zomba and stuck around for the five-year stretch between the company’s acquisition by the old BMG in 2002 and the sale of BMG Music Publishing in 2007. He returned in 2009 when Bertelsmann launched what it initially dubbed BMG Rights Management. Hartwig Masuch describes Dobinson as “one of the few managers in the music business who combines high-level experience in both finance and operations with industry knowledge of both music publishing and recorded music. He also does a hilarious stand-up routine.” (12/11a)