Ole ObermannThe TiktokGlobal Head of Music Company Development at BytaDance, is ready to leave the company, Amount has confirmed. Tracy Gardner will go into the role after Obermann expired in March.
Gardner started working for Tiktok and its parent company change in November 2019 as head of license licenses and partnerships. She was previously Senior Vice President, Global Business Development and Strategy at the Warner Music Group.
Representatives of Tiktok declined AmountRequest for comment. Obermann will fulfill a role at another, unclear music company after his departure in March.
In an internal memo issued by Obermann addressed his staff and was published by Music activities all over the worldWrites Exec: “I think the best way for me to say goodbye is to summarize my five and a half years on TikTok through the music that has moved me and our billions of users over the years.” Obermann quotes the success of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road”, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, Charli XCX’s “Brat” and Lola Young’s “Messy” on the platform.
Obermann joined Tiktok 2019 from his previous post on Warner music As Chief Digital Officer, where he led the ship at major digital partnerships, helped expand commercial operations and monitored the creation of WMG Boost, the group’s investment fund for seed steps. Before Warner, Obermann spent a decade on Sony Music and led the company through negotiations with Youtube, Spotify and more.
Obermann was with TikTok among some of the company’s most controversial face-off, most prominent their tense 2024 negotiations with Universal Music Group (which ended with a license agreement), and their dispute with Merlin, a digital rights agency representing independent labels.
“As you know, we had a couple of major licensing challenges,” Obermann said Hits double daily in December. “I spent several months incredibly deep in that situation (UMG), but I’m really happy where it all landed. During the five plus years I have been to Tiktok, the relationship with Universal has never been better … and then it is obviously the Merlin thing. It’s a shame that it became the US-Merlin in the press, because as I said in public, it really wasn’t about us versus Merlin … It was just about wanting to do direct business with members in Merlin, because we think That we can do a better job operational to work with these labels if we are in direct business with them. “
