Swedish music service Hyph has appointed Hartwig Masuch as chairman of the company, effective April 2026.
Masuch was the founder and creator of Bertelsmann’s music company, BMG. He stepped down as BMG CEO in 2023 after 15 years.
Hyph, led by CEO and songwriter Andreas Carlsson, is focused on creating new interactive value-added services designed to maintain music industry growth as the subscription streaming market matures.
Core to Hyph’s offer is a library of millions of wholly-owned, human-created musical parts. The first iteration of the Hyph suite of products is an app currently on trial in the Nordics, the UK, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America which allows fans to create their own unique songs from Hyph’s building blocks.
Further products under development include a marketplace allowing artists to sell vocal lines, hooks and other musical parts direct to the consumer, and API’s which allow labels to engage fans and activate catalogues.
Masuch grew BMG from a start-up team of three in 2009 to a highly profitable global company with revenues of over $900m by the time he left in 2023. Under his leadership, the company made over 200 significant acquisitions.
He has joined Hyph in an advisory capacity with immediate effect and will transition to chairman in April 2026.
Hartwig Masuch is one of the most accomplished global music executives of the past two decades
Andreas Carlsson
“Streaming transformed music for the better, unleashing a wave of transparency which has empowered artists and restored the industry to profitability,” said Hartwig Masuch. “But as subscription streaming begins to peak in major markets, music is increasingly thinking about what’s next. Hyph, with its commitment to human-generated music, and its understanding of the new creator economy is ideally poised to play its part in music’s next revolution. I am delighted to join Andreas and the team in turning this vision into reality.”
Songwriters Hall Of Fame nominee Andreas Carlsson, CEO of Hyph, is the writer of songs for artists including Backstreet Boys (I Want It That Way), N’Sync (Bye, Bye, Bye) and Celine Dion (That’s The Way It Is).
“Hartwig Masuch is one of the most accomplished global music executives of the past two decades,” said Carlsson. “We are delighted that he is joining us in our mission to create the first genuine leap forward for music since the advent of subscription streaming.
“Since I became CEO of this company 18 months ago, my mission, drawing on all my experiences as a songwriter and my deep understanding of rights, has been to create an ecosystem that allows musicians to prosper while using technology to give non?musicians the ability to play with music in a way they have never had before. The addition of Hartwig to our team brings that vision one step closer.”
Photo credit: Barbara Dietl
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