Exclusive: EMI Classics decapitated – again

The bumbling Citibankers who own EMI and are trying to sell it have never had a clue what to do about its prestigious but non-megaprofitable classical division. For a while they left it alone under the leadership of Eric Dingman, a former garment industry executive who did less harm than expected.

But Eric apparently outlived his usefulness. Today, he was ousted.

Here’s the brutal internal memo that went round an hour ago. It may appear to be in English, but it’s not a language I recognise.

From: Internal Communication
Sent: 11 August 2011 20:07
To: !1 All EMI Music Staff Globally
Subject: Organisation announcement - from Leo Corbett

Dear all

We are taking steps to better align the Classics business with our new
Hub management system.   Within our ongoing commitment to the Classics
business globally, we want to be sure to optimize how Classics integrate
with the various regional and country organisations as we have done in
other genres.  With Classics, as with all our businesses and functions,

we are continuously moving to increase our operating effectiveness.

To that end, David Kassler will become the Chairman of Classics and lead
a new Global Classics Steering Group, comprised of the senior Classics
professionals from around the world.  Also in this Group will be Amanda
Cupples, who will function as the Chief Operating Officer for the Global
Classics business, focusing on strategy development and global
coordination.  The majority of our classics teams in territories will
report into their local country organisations.

We would like to thank Eric Dingman for his leadership of Classics over
these past few years.  Eric has brought a series of important changes to
the business and we are all the better for that.  We wish Eric well as
he moves on.

Best

Leo
Chief Operating Officer, EMI Group