Robert Kyncl has made his first major hire as CEO of Warner Music Group – bringing across a former colleague from YouTube in a newly-created role.

Tim Matusch has joined WMG this month as EVP of Strategy & Operations, which is described by Kyncl as a “new function” at the music company. Matusch, like Kyncl, will primarily be based at Warner’s headquarters in New York.

MBW has confirmed Matusch will report to Kyncl at WMG.

Matusch was previously Managing Director, Strategy & Business Operations at YouTube, also based in NYC, from 2020 onwards.

Prior to joining YouTube, the British exec was Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and ran his own consulting LLC in New York.

From 2014 to 2017 Matusch held roles at AOL including Head of Strategy and Operations and General Manager of AOL.com, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Matusch started his career at the management consulting firm Oliver Wyman in London in the early noughties. He spent nearly 13 years at Oliver Wyman, moving to New York and rising to Partner before leaving for AOL.

In a memo to Warner staff sent last week and obtained by MBW, Robert Kyncl said that Matusch would be “working closely with me, the wider leadership team, and many of you, to help define, facilitate, and execute our 5–10 year vision”.

Kyncl added that Matusch would “play a pivotal role in evolving our cross-company plans”, which would include “deploying business intelligence to strengthen our decision-making” as well as “developing and tracking a set of critical KPIs”.

Kyncl noted that the Strategy & Operations role (“StratOps”) was a newly-created position at WMG, but said that it was “a function I’ve seen add huge value to many dynamic, rapidly evolving companies like ours”.

In reference to creating a permanent internal position for “StratOps” rather than relying on external consultants, Kyncl said that he was “a firm believer in tapping into, growing, and unleashing the expertise within the company itself. That way, we’re more directly investing in ourselves, and compounding our knowledge and skills over time.”

Committed MBW readers will know well that, prior to joining Warner Music Group as CEO this month, Robert Kyncl spent 12 years at YouTube, most recently as Chief Business Officer.

Kyncl confirmed in his note today that he had worked with Matusch “across a wide variety of projects” at YouTube and had been “consistently impressed by what [Matusch’s] team has delivered and how they did it – in a very collaborative fashion – which is particularly important to me”.

At Warner, Matusch joins a central leadership team under Kyncl that includes executives such as Eric Levin (CFO & EVP), Maria Osherova (Chief People Officer & EVP), Paul Robinson (General Counsel & EVP), and Oana Ruxandra (Chief Digital Officer & EVP, Business Development).

According to Warner Music Group SEC filings, on arrival in his new role, Matusch was granted 23,290 shares of Class A common stock in the company.Music Business Worldwide