African execs make Billboard's 2021 International Power Players list

The list recognises industry influencers in more than 100 companies, which Billboard says are “driving the success of the music business outside the US”. They include label executives, music publishers, independent entrepreneurs, artist managers and concert promoters who were all nominated by their companies and peers and selected by Billboard’s editors.

Ogulu is Afro-fusion star Burna Boy's mother and manager and the co-founder of the Spaceship Collective. Sipho Dlamini heads Universal Music South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. Dlamini oversees operations within Anglophone countries in Africa, while his colleague, Okeke, heads the company's operations in Nigeria and other Anglophone West Africa markets.

Other African music executives on the list include Africa Creative Agency founder and CEO Colin Gayle, who manages and produces South African rapper Nasty C, 0207 Def Jam Universal Music UK co-presidents Alec and Alex Boateng, Sheer Publishing Africa founder and managing director David Alexander and Universal Music managing director Franck Kacou, who leads operations in Ivory Coast and across 27 French-speaking markets in Africa.

“Honoured to have made it to Billboard’s 2021 international power player list,” Ogulu said. “Looking forward to breaking down more doors.”

Commenting on Ogulu, Billboard said: “Amid the pandemic, Ogulu co-executive produced, released and promoted the Twice As Tall album from Nigeria’s global star Burna Boy (aka her son, Damini Ogulu). The project won best global music album at this year’s Grammy Awards. Bose [Ogulu] has set up a publishing company through Spaceship Collective to enable Africans to own their own catalogues ‘so that the authenticity of our stories, our glory, our culture is sustained, and we are empowered.”

Meanwhile, the 2021 International Power Players list posthumously crowned the late Australian entrepreneur and businessman Michael Gudinski as the international executive of the year. The exec was the founder of the Mushroom Group and a music industry pioneer whose career spanned more than five decades.

Read about all the 2021 International Power Players here.