JAMES MORTON ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF ERA
SPOTIFY, DEEZER, SAINSBURYS AND RESIDENT
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Wednesday 19 September 2018 – James Morton, one of the key figures behind Sky Store’s ground-breaking Buy & Keep video service, has been elected unanimously as Chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), it was announced at the organisation’s annual general meeting today.
The election of Morton, who has served on ERA’s Executive Board for the past two years, marks a ramping up of ERA’s activities with the publication of a new edition of its “manifesto”, Entertainment 5.0: Delivering The Future Of Entertainment, the launch of a raft of new collaborative promotions and an entertainment sector in rude health, growing revenues 8% in the first half of 2018 compared with the same period of 2017.
Sky Store’s Buy & Keep service is the UK’s most successful hybrid digital and physical entertainment offering, combining digital downloads with physical discs delivered direct to home.
Morton began his career as an accountant with Ernst & Young before joining the entertainment industry with a move to Sky, working in a number of roles across finance and strategic planning before joining Sky Store.
“This is one of the most exciting periods in entertainment history,” says Morton. “Across video, music and games, digital services and retailers are delivering more choice of format, access and content than ever before. I am delighted to have been given this opportunity to represent such a vibrant sector embracing the smallest independent to the giants of digital entertainment, supermarkets and High Street specialists.”
As non-executive chairman, Morton will lead a new-look Executive Board at ERA which alongside returning members Paul Firth, Director of Amazon Music UK, and Rudy Osorio, Commercial Director at HMV Retail, also includes four new faces:
- Tom Connaughton, Managing Director UK, Spotify
Connaughton joined Spotify in April 2018 as Head of Artist and Label Marketing, UK, before being promoted to MD. He was Senior VP, Creative Content & Programming, at Vevo. Prior to joining Vevo, Connaughton spent time working in artist marketing and promotion at Sony Music, before joining MySpace where he was Director, Programming & Content.
- Nick Hill, Head of Entertainment & Electrical Accessories, Argos / Sainsbury’s
Hill has over 25 years of multi-channel retail experience having worked for start-ups and large corporates including Comet, Woolworths, Homebase, Argos and Sainsbury’s. He has travelled extensively across the Far East, US and Europe developing long term strategic relationships at the most senior level with global players including Apple, Amazon, Google, Sony and Samsung.
- Phil Moore, VP Northern & Southern EMEA, Deezer
With over 25 years experience in the telecoms and consumer electronics markets, Moore joined Deezer from Huawei Technologies. His international career has spanned network providers, retailers, manufacturers and platform/service providers including Vodafone, Palm and Microsoft.
- Natasha Youngs, Co-owner, Resident
Youngs has worked in music retail ever since leaving university at the age of 21. She started as an Our Price Sales Assistant, working her way up through the ranks into management to become concessions manager and then at Head Office as Operations Project Manager for new store openings. She then oversaw the roll-out schedule for the V.Shop project before doing the same at Sanity. She met her future husband Derry at Virgin/Our Price and in 2004 together they opened Resident.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley said, “ERA has developed significantly over the past three years since the launch of our first manifesto which paved the way for the launch of a raft of new activity including successful promotions such as Must See Movies, Let’s Play May and the forthcoming National Album Day as well as Record Store Day which continues to go from strength to strength. I want to pay tribute to the retiring board members who have given us such a strong foundation. I look forward to working with James and the new board to further evolve our agenda.”
ENDS
For more information please contact Steve Redmond steve@eraltd.org (07770 924720)
About ERA
ERA is the trade association representing the vast majority of retailers and digital services offering music, video and games. Its members range from independent record shops (Reflex, Sister Ray) to digital services (Spotify, Google, Sky, Deezer, 7digital) to internet retailers (Amazon) to specialist High Street operators (HMV, Game) and supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons)
ERA members supply the sales data which powers the Official Charts Company (music and video charts) and GfK Chart-Track (videogames). Together with record companies trade association the BPI, it owns the Official Charts Company.
ERA provides the organisational force behind Record Store Day, the annual celebration of independent record stores which has become the most successful new music industry promotion of the past two decades.
ERA works closely with its sister organisations in music, video and games and is a strong proponent of open markets, open standards and consumer choice.