Warner Music Group promotes senior attorneys

Warner Music Group (WMG) has promoted long-time executives Trent Tappe and Maryrose Maness to the position of deputy general counsel, reporting to executive vice president and general counsel Paul Robinson.

Tappe was named senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer (CCO). He was most recently senior vice president, chief corporate governance and securities counsel and CCO.

He and his team support areas such as the company’s corporate governance and board of director functions, SEC reporting and capital markets transactions, WMG’s compliance program and corporate M&A. During his 14 years with the company, Tappe has participated in transactions including its 2005 IPO, its acquisition by Access Industries in 2011 and its purchase of Parlophone Label Group in 2013.

Maness is now senior vice president and deputy general counsel. She was previously senior vice president and chief employment and corporate infrastructure counsel. She oversees practice areas such as employment, privacy, records management and trademarks and domain names. She also serves as chief counsel and adviser on employee relations, wage and hour, disability, affirmative actions, occupational safety and health administration issues, immigration and benefits matters.

Most recently, she took a lead role in efforts to ensure WMG complies with the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation.

‘Trent and Maryrose are two of the most astute and insightful legal minds it has been my pleasure to work with,’ Robinson says in a statement. ‘Their tenure at WMG has coincided with a time of major transformation in our company and throughout our industry. They have done exceptional jobs in navigating complex and often uncharted territory. In addition, they’re both huge music fans, which gives them a real passion for our artists, our songwriters and the creativity that drives our business.’

Before joining WMG, Tappe was an associate in the capital markets group of Shearman & Sterling, and before that he worked with PwC. Before joining WMG in 2008, Maness was senior assistant general counsel at Altria Client Services, having previously served as chief labor and employment counsel at Melville Corporation.