Ole Obermann is an American music industry executive serving as Global Head of Music at TikTok & Bytedance where he oversees music business development and strategy. Ole is responsible for negotiating music rights for TikTok and Resso and he also drives the long term strategy for music on TikTok. Since Ole joined TikTok, the business has grown at pace globally, announced a series of new licensing deals and partnerships, and firmly placed music at the heart of its future growth and strategy.
Before joining TikTok, Ole was the Chief Digital Officer at Warner Music Group. He was instrumental in closing the first FaceBook deal for Warner Music Group and he launched the Boost Fund to enable Warner Music to invest in promising music focused startups. Prior to that, Ole served as Executive Vice President of Global Digital Partner Development at Sony Music. Ole was one of the architects of the first Sony Music Spotify deal and he developed the foundational infrastructure for predictive song analytics based on streaming data during his tenure at Sony. Ole also ran Liquid Audio, a technology platform that is credited with being one of the digital audio formats that emerged as the industry began its transformation to a digital format. Ole has developed a strong reputation of understanding where the music industry is headed in its next phase of growth as well as a well balanced respect for intellectual property and technological innovation.
Ole currently resides in London. He graduated with an International Relations degree from Colgate University and an MBA in Management & Strategy from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. When asked about this favourite thing about TikTok, Ole says “the amount of creativity and joy you can fit into a 15 second video never ceases to amaze me”.