July 20, 2010

By By Lars Brandle, Brisbane

EMI Music Publishing Australia?s long-time managing director John Anderson is leaving the company, Billboard.biz can reveal.

Anderson, a 34-year stalwart with the music publisher, will leave the company this August. His successor is EMI Music Publishing Spain managing director Santiago Menendez-Pidal, who will relocate to Sydney at an unconfirmed date later this year at which time he will take the reins as managing director of EMI Music Publishing Australia.

Menendez-Pidal, who joined EMI Publishing in 2005, will report to EMI Group chairman and CEO Roger Faxon.

During his time with EMI Publishing, Anderson played a hand in the success of many hit songwriters and artists, including Men at Work, Savage Garden, Air Supply, Icehouse, Jimmy Barnes, Divinyls, Diesel, and The Wiggles, and more recently the Veronicas, the Presets and Ladyhawke.

Anderson currently serves as a director with various music trade organizations Down Under, including the Australasian Performing Rights Association, the Australasian Music Publishers Association Limited (AMPAL), and the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society Limited, for which he previously helmed as chair.

In a statement, Faxon describes Anderson as ?the bedrock of our Australian business? and pays respect to Menendez-Pidal?s ?great creative and commercial acumen.?

While at the helm of the Spanish company, Menendez-Pidal signed and developed such Spanish and Latin writers as Carlos Baute, Bebe, Melendi, Merch?, El Arrebeto, Andy and Lucas, Russian Red and SFDK. He also oversaw EMI?s acquisition of Spain?s largest production music library company, Music Contact.

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