Longtime Warner Music executive Bart Cools has announced that he will leave the label this month after a 13-year tenure.
Hailing 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’s acquisition of the label from Universal during the latter’s EMI divestment. Amid the many high points of his career — which included working with artists like Daft Punk, Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers and Air during their rises in the ’90s — has been a long working relationship with French titan David Guetta, who came into the Warner family with the Parlophone acquisition.
“Suddenly we also had the No. 1 DJ in the world: David Guetta,” Cools tells Billboard. “My 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. Effectively, this meant setting up a Warner Dance community to make sure Warner’s dance and electronic music offering was more robust, more innovative and more connected than ever.”
During these early days at WMG, Cools’ 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.
Cools also oversaw WMG’s 2017 acquisition of trendsetting Dutch dance label Spinnin’ Records, with Cools working with the Spinnin team to, he says, “safeguard its independence and ‘indie’ ways of working.” In 2021, WMG acquired the Guetta catalog, signing a new deal for future releases with the artist. Two years later, the label also acquired a share in SDM management, which represents artists including Schulz, HUGEL, Marten Lou and more.
“I worked with Bart from his very start at Warner,” SDM owner Stefan Dabruck tells Billboard. “He 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.”
Related
Adds Guetta’s longtime manager Jean Charles Carre, “Bart 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’s not something you can fake or manufacture; it’s built over decades of showing up, doing the work and actually caring about the people around you. Sixteen years in, and he’s 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.”
Cools was included on Billboard‘s March feature on Dance Power Players, in which he highlighted the label’s work with “Spinnin’s CYRIL and Atlantic’s Disco Lines, while elevating icons like Tiësto and David Guetta, who became the first artist with 20 No. 1s on Dance/Mix Show Airplay.”
As far as his next moves go, Cools says he’s “going to enjoy the summer and think about what’s next. Not hanging up the headphones just yet.”
