Warner Music has promoted Izabela Ciszek-Podziemska (pictured, left) to the newly-created position of general manager of Warner Music South East Europe.
In this role, she will be responsible for overseeing the company’s operations in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. She will report into Alfonso Perez-Soto (pictured, right), president of emerging markets, Warner Recorded Music.
Ciszek-Podziemska previously held the role of head of business development, South East Europe at Warner Music, and has been responsible for securing exclusive licensing and distribution deals with a number of leading music companies in the region.
Through one of these partnerships, with Romanian independent label Global Records, Warner Music was able to sign and upstream local popstar Minelli. As part of Warner Music’s international network, Minelli had a global impact with her track Rampampam, which has more than 60 million streams on Spotify and almost 200 million views on YouTube.
Izabela Ciszek-Podziemska said: “I’m honoured to be taking on this wider role across South East Europe. Over the last few years, we’ve been building great relationships with some of the region’s most exciting and engaged music companies. We plan to keep developing our relationships, while expanding our remit even further across the region. There are so many incredible artists here and I hope to help them reach a global audience.”
Alfonso Perez-Soto added: “Iza is a brilliant executive who has done a fantastic job growing our business in South East Europe. This new role will give her greater responsibility and the backing to go and find more great artists like Minelli. We want to partner with local experts from the region and help them develop a new generation of international superstars.”
Ciszek-Podziemska started her career at BMG, before taking on the role of head of music at ITI Film Studio. She subsequently moved to Sony Music Entertainment where she held the role of digital director, before becoming brand manager in the VAS Team at Orange Poland where she helped strike a local partnership with Spotify.
She joined Warner Music in 2016 as digital business development manager for South East Europe, before being promoted to head of business development for South East Europe in 2020.
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