FKP Scorpio has promoted Freddie de Wall to co-CEO, serving alongside founder and CEO Folkert Koopmans and CEO Stephan Thanscheidt.

De Wall, who was previously COO at the European concert and festival organiser, will be responsible for driving forward the group’s international business among other things.

“I am delighted to be able to open another chapter in my role at FKP Scorpio with this new responsibility,” says de Wall. “We have not only grown strongly as a team in recent years but have also consistently developed business areas in new markets. I am proud that I can continue to drive this development forward and would like to thank Folkert and Stephan for the trust they have placed in me by taking this step.”

Koopmans comments: “I got to know Freddie back in the eighties when he offered me the headliner for a festival I was promoting. Today, he is not only an experienced executive but also a valued colleague in the group. His international management experience and his excellent network will undoubtedly also benefit him as CEO in order to continue to grow our future business.”

“With the three of us, we are ideally positioned to continue to grow strategically and healthily across the entire group”

Thanscheidt adds: “Our continued success requires good leadership. With the three of us, we are ideally positioned to continue to grow strategically and healthily across the entire group.”

De Wall is a former music- and artist manager with many years of experience in international management positions within the music industry.

At the beginning of the 1980s, he began his career as a promoter and tour manager for international artists, spending 20 years in management positions and as a managing director for major record labels.

De Wall has been working for Hamburg-based FKP Scorpio since 2017, during which time he has developed structures for the group’s international business operation. As CEO, he will continue to expand the international strategy and planning for the group.

In addition to the operations and management of the ten FKP Scorpio international offices, his role will include the responsibilities of Digital, IT, Sustainability and Legal, the firm says.

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German promoter FKP Scorpio has appointed veteran artist manager Freddie de Wall to the newly created position of chief operating officer (COO).

De Wall (pictured) was most recently co-owner and managing director of Hamburg-based management firm Heinrich & de Wall. He began his career as a road manager and booker with now-defunct concert promoter Sunrise, then spent two decades in the label business, working at Phonogram, WEA Records, Metronome, BMG (where he rose to become MD of BMG Denmark) and Edel Music.

At FKP Scorpio, which has since last June been majority owned by CTS Eventim, de Wall will focus on international “project development and coordination, and the strategic development and expansion of new business fields, both domestically and abroad”, according to a statement from Scorpio.

FKP Scorpio’s founder and managing director, Folkert Koopmans, comments: “With Freddie de Wall we have managed to acquire both a passionate and professional expert as COO. His diverse experience and contacts in the international music business will help us to successfully continue our expansion, both nationally and throughout Europe, and to implement the internal structures that are necessary to achieve this.

“With Freddie de Wall we have managed to acquire both a passionate and professional expert as COO”

“We are delighted that Freddie will strengthen the FKP Scorpio team in future as operative head, and that we can tackle the approaching challenges with him.”

“For many years I have observed with interest how purposefully Folkert Koopmans and his team have made FKP Scorpio into one of the most renowned and successful companies in the tough live music market, not only in Germany but throughout Europe,” adds de Wall. “He is a man of action, a great networker and impulse generator for the sector, with his own style.

“I am looking forward to bringing my own experience from many years in the music business to FKP Scorpio, taking responsibility for the operative business at a highly professional promoter and consolidating and further developing the position of the company internationally.”

FKP Scorpio recently won promoter of the year at the German Live Entertainment Awards 2017.

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