\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n\tLongtime Warner Music executive Bart Cools <\/strong>has announced that he will leave the label this month after a 13-year tenure.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tDavid Guetta Becomes First Artist to Earn 20 No. 1s on Dance\/Mix Show Airplay\u00a0Chart\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \n\tHailing from the Netherlands, Cools joined WMG in 2013 as its executive vp of global marketing and A&R for dance music, coming from Parlophone amid WMG\u2019s acquisition of the label from Universal during the latter\u2019s EMI divestment. Amid the many high points of his career \u2014 which included working with artists like Daft Punk, Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers and Air during their rises in the \u201990s \u2014 has been a long working relationship with French titan David Guetta, who came into the Warner family with the Parlophone acquisition.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSuddenly we also had the No. 1 DJ in the world: David Guetta,\u201d Cools tells Billboard<\/em>. \u201cMy task was to ensure this transition succeeded. In addition to this, my main role was to be the dance music specialist with a remit to develop A&R and marketing capabilities in the main territories.\u00a0Effectively, this meant setting up a Warner Dance community to make sure\u00a0Warner\u2019s dance and electronic music offering was more robust, more innovative and more connected than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDuring these early days at WMG, Cools\u2019 key signings included Robin Schulz in Germany; Feder and Ofenbach in France; and Clean Bandit, Joel Corry and Icona Pop in the U.K. and U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCools also oversaw WMG\u2019s 2017 acquisition of trendsetting Dutch dance label Spinnin\u2019 Records, with Cools working with the Spinnin team to, he says, \u201csafeguard its independence and \u2018indie\u2019 ways of working.\u201d In 2021, WMG acquired the Guetta catalog, signing a new deal for future releases\u00a0with the artist. Two years later, the label also acquired a share in SDM management, which represents artists including Schulz, HUGEL, Marten Lou and more.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI worked with Bart from his very\u00a0start at Warner,\u201d SDM owner Stefan Dabruck<\/strong> tells Billboard<\/em>. \u201cHe is amazing to work with and always there when you need him. One of the few guys in the industry I will always look up to.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tBillboard\u2019s Dance Power Players 2026: Executive List\u00a0Revealed\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAdds Guetta\u2019s longtime manager Jean Charles Carre<\/strong>, \u201cBart has been part of our team since 2009, through every label transition: Virgin, Parlophone, Warner, he was the one who made sure we never got lost in the shuffle. When we sold our catalogue to Warner Music Group in 2021, he was the driving force on their side of the table. In this business, everyone knows Bart and Bart knows everyone. That\u2019s not something you can fake or manufacture; it\u2019s built over decades of showing up, doing the work and actually caring about the people around you. Sixteen years in, and he\u2019s still one of a kind: someone who can close a major deal on a Monday and be at the club at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, still loving every minute of it. Not many people in this business can say that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCools was included on Billboard<\/em>\u2018s March feature on Dance Power Players, in which he highlighted the label\u2019s work with \u201cSpinnin\u2019s CYRIL and Atlantic\u2019s Disco Lines, while elevating icons like Ti\u00ebsto and David Guetta, who became the first artist with 20 No.\u00a01s on Dance\/Mix Show Airplay.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs far as his next moves go, Cools says he\u2019s \u201cgoing to enjoy the summer and think about what\u2019s next.\u00a0 Not hanging up the headphones just yet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/bart-cools-dance-exec-leaving-warner-music-spinnin-guetta\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Billboard-Bart-Cools-2026.jpeg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard Longtime Warner Music executive Bart Cools has announced that he will leave the label this month after a 13-year tenure. Related David Guetta Becomes First Artist to Earn 20 No. 1s on Dance\/Mix Show Airplay\u00a0Chart Xander Zellner Hailing from the Netherlands, Cools joined WMG in 2013 as its executive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-1949979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1949979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1949979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1949979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1949979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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