Dr Kenji Kitatani, the Chairman of sports media company DAZN Japan, has been appointed to the new role Chairman of Warner Music Japan. He will be working closely with Kazuyuki ‘Kaz’ Kobayashi, President & CEO of Warner Music Japan, to further grow the company’s presence in the world’s second largest music market.
Dr Kitatani is a renowned global media and entertainment business expert with substantial corporate experience and academic expertise and a career spanning more than four decades.
He started his career holding faculty positions at Washington State University and Indiana University before moving into the broadcasting industry in the 1980s, serving in senior international executive positions at Nippon Television Network and Tokyo Broadcasting System. In 1989, he was appointed as a Board Director of Tokyo Dome Corporation and President of its American subsidiaries in New York.
A decade later, Kitatani joined the Sony Corporation and held Executive Officer and Executive Vice President of Sony Corporation of America positions concurrently. He went on to act as President of Avex International Holdings, Japan’s largest independent music entertainment conglomerate, between 2011 and 2017, actively leading its subsidiaries in China, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.
Kitatani went on to become EVP, Asia and Executive Director for Japan at AEG, the world’s leading sports and entertainment company, before taking up advisory roles at companies including Broadmedia, Mitsubishi and NTT Docomo, and assuming the Chairmanship of DAZN Japan last year.
He remains an eminent academic, currently acting as a Professor and Director at the Institute for Content and Technology Integration at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, and previously serving as a Distinguished Professor at Washington State University. He also works as a regular columnist for Forbes Japan.
Dr Kenji Kitatani says: “This is an exciting time in the Japanese music industry. I am delighted to take up this new role at Warner Music, working with Kaz on the continuing evolution of the company as we build the most forward-thinking label in the Japanese market.”
Kaz Kobayashi adds: “I am delighted to welcome Dr Kitatani to Warner Music and am pleased that such a distinguished executive has agreed to take on this challenge. We’ve achieved a lot in the last decade at Warner Music Japan, but our industry never stands still and we need to continue to adapt if we are to keep being the first choice for our country’s most exciting artists.”