Operations & the P&L
Label operations, publishing, distribution, royalties, catalog, and rights — seeing the whole business clearly, then making the right call with confidence.
Nashville · Est. 2026
A private advisory practice for a select few — labels, founders, investors, and artists navigating an industry being reshaped as much by technology as by talent.
The Founder
After thirty-seven years in the music business — the last twenty-one with Big Machine Label Group and, most recently, HYBE — Andrew Kautz has begun a new chapter.
He started on the studio floor at Emerald Sound Studios in 1989, working from college intern to Chief Operating Officer of what became the Southeast's largest recording operation: five buildings and thirteen studios on Music Row.
In 2005, Scott Borchetta took a chance on him as Employee #2 at a brand-new label called Big Machine. Over the next two decades — as General Manager, Chief Operating Officer, and President of Label Operations — that small but mighty team became the world's most successful independent record label, supporting artists including Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts, Thomas Rhett, Florida Georgia Line, and Carly Pearce, and stewarding the company through its acquisitions by Ithaca Holdings (2019) and HYBE (2021).
He built the infrastructure most people never see: the financial forecasting, royalty accounting, and rights-management teams; the enterprise-technology backbone of a modern music company; and the business development and partnerships — including landmark broadcast royalty agreements — behind so many careers.
Most recently, as President of Strategy & Operations for HYBE Label Service — HYBE's first global department — he built unified distribution, marketing, and operational infrastructure across America, Latin America, Korea, and India, in service of a roster spanning country, rock, hip-hop, Top 40, pop, and K-pop.
A front-row seat to the industry's greatest transformation — from a $10 physical product, to a $1 digital product, to a fraction-of-a-penny stream that scales globally on an annuity principle that never existed before.
The Practice
A limited roster, real availability, and candid advice drawn from decades spent at the operational heart of this business. Clients are labels, founders, and investors, as well as artists and their teams. All of them get the same thing — my full attention.
Label operations, publishing, distribution, royalties, catalog, and rights — seeing the whole business clearly, then making the right call with confidence.
Financial forecasting, business development, partnerships, and transactions — structured by someone who has stewarded a company through two landmark acquisitions.
Choosing and integrating the technologies that run a modern music company, and building data and streaming analytics into everyday decision-making.
Developing AI strategies that create real leverage — without compromising the art or the artist. Signal over noise, in a decade shaped by both talent and technology.
Long-standing relationships at the highest levels — label heads, publishers, broadcasters, platform founders, technologists, and rights organizations — earned over decades of doing business the right way.
Guidance for the next generation of leaders on personal development and network-building — the connections that help them grow their understanding of the whole industry.