Back in the early 2000s, when a recruiter lined up Kent Hoskins for a finance interview at Boosey & Hawkes, he came prepared to discuss guitar manufacturing. Instead, the executive immediately began quizzing him on music royalties—the recruiter had apparently misunderstood the brief. Hoskins didn’t get the job—at first. But two days later, he got a call: the selected candidate had quit after just 24 hours. Hoskins stepped in.
That twist marked a pivotal entry into the world of music IP—one that would shape a two-decade career. At Boosey & Hawkes, he saw firsthand how legacy operations could weigh down financial performance. “Fifty percent of revenue came from physical sheet music,” he recalls, “but it only made up 15% of EBITDA.” The company licensed out the segment, cut headcount, and reinvested in IP, increasing both margins and focus. “It stayed with me… if there’s not a path to profitability from revenue, why are you doing it?”
Today, as CFO of Concord, Hoskins applies the same operational lens across a $900 million IP portfolio. After joining Concord through acquisition in 2017, he became CFO in 2021. Strategic forecasting now combines AI and streaming data—insights that recently helped identify renewed demand for the Creed catalog. “We could see it from the consumption,” he tells us, which triggered targeted marketing and revenue lift.
His priorities today? Integrating two newly acquired operating businesses and refinancing debt to lower capital costs. “You have to consistently analyze and refocus,” Hoskins tells us. It’s a mindset forged from both serendipity and discipline—one sheet of music at a time.
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CFOTL: For those unfamiliar with Concord, how do you introduce the company today? What sets this business apart?
Hoskins: I think you briefly touched on it. It’s the largest independent global music company—and it is truly a music company. We have around 700 employees globally. We operate a very large catalog business, but we also have a frontline business where we actively sign artists and writers.
Our catalog spans everything from Boosey & Hawkes, which is 20th-century classical music, to mid-century musicals like Rodgers and Hammerstein, and on through the decades—’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s. It’s grown substantially. We’ll probably do over $900 million in revenue this year, and we’re targeting a billion next year.
CFOTL: Finance folks often talk about “creating value.” How does Concord’s business model generate value across its catalog and offerings?
Hoskins: The first thing we look at with rights and rights acquisition is: What does it provide to the organization that we don’t already have? Or, what does it add to something we already do?
We frequently evaluate acquisitions we think may have been under-exploited—back to the hygiene factor I mentioned earlier. Have those rights been properly registered? For example, about seven years ago we bought a regional Mexican catalog of music—both masters and publishing—and found that a number of the songs weren’t even up on the DSPs (like Apple or Spotify). So we saw a clear opportunity to create value there.
We also have a team called Craft—some of the albums behind me are from them. What Craft does is take catalog content and ask, “Wouldn’t it be great if we remastered and reissued this?” They actively look at what we have and work to bring those recordings back to market. That leads to more engagement from fans. Sure, maybe it’s another vinyl sale—but you also get a step-up in revenue just from reactivating interest in music that people once loved.
Concord | www.concord.com | Nashville, TN