Scooter Braun will step down from his role as CEO of HYBE America and move into a consulting role, the company announced Tuesday.
The executive and entrepreneur will be transitioning into an executive advisory role, where he will remain as a director of HYBE’s board of directors and senior advisor to HYBE’s CEO-chairman. Isaac Lee will take over his role as CEO of HYBE America.
Sources tell Variety Braun is stepping down in order to focus on his next endeavor, which was unclear at press time.
“Scooter has been an extraordinary partner, a visionary executive, and a true catalyst for cultural exchange,” HYBE chairman Bang Si-Hyuk said in a statement. “His contributions have been vital in establishing our ambitious presence in the U.S. market. I am deeply grateful for his leadership, his astute instincts, and his unwavering passion for artists. We wish him immense success in his exciting next chapter and look forward to continuing our partnership in executing HYBE’s global vision.”
During his tenure the company acquired the Atlanta-based hip-hop powerhouse Quality Control (whose catalog includes Lil Baby, Lil Yachty, City Girls and earlier Migos releases) for a reported $320 million, and struck a distribution deal for Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def label. It also sold off the Big Machine label’s rock division for an undisclosed sum earlier this year.
Braun’s Ithaca Holdings merged with HYBE in April 2021, giving the company a 100% stake in Ithaca and its properties, which at the time included SB Projects and management clients Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato, among others, as well as Big Machine Label Group. With the merger, Braun joined the board of HYBE and retained the CEO title for its American business. After serving initially as co-CEO with Lenzo Yoon, he was named sole CEO in January of 2023.
Braun was one of the most powerful artist managers in the music industry, but he became the object of Taylor Swift’s ire in 2018 after he acquired Big Machine Label Group and, with it, the rights to her first six albums. She felt she had not been given a fair chance to acquire the rights to her albums and bitterly criticized Braun in comments and social media. He sold the rights to the catalog for a tidy profit 18 months later; Swift acquired them herself earlier this year. However, the damage to his profile was significant, and not enhanced by his gradual parting of ways with Bieber — accompanied by a dispute over money, although that auditors have reportedly determined that the singer actually owes Braun at least $1 million — although Braun stated that he had been intentionally stepping away from artist management for many months.
While HYBE is a longtime powerhouse of the K-pop genre, particularly with the groups BTS and Seventeen, the company has had a challenging few months. Prosecutors raided the company’s Seoul headquarters in May amid allegations of insider trading involving a former executive.
The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office is looking into allegations that a former HYBE executive illegally earned profits of up to $176,500 dollars (240 million won) through stock trading using insider information, per The Korea Times.
The identity of the former employee remains concealed as officials investigate that person’s purchase of YG Plus (an affiliate of YG Entertainment) shares, a transaction said to have occurred after the accused executive learned of HYBE’s plan to invest in the company.
Elsewhere, reports of unlawful conduct at the hands of HYBE’s Founder and Chairman, Bang Si-hyuk, surfaced in December on account of the executive being monitored by Korea’s Financial Services Supervisors. Though separate from the investigation that occured this morning, financial regulators in Korea are looking into claims Si-hyuk purposefully misguided investors ahead of the company’s first public offering in 2020.
In the last five years, the company has worked to expand internationally, with budding sectors in global markets including Latin America and the United States.