Sony Corp said Thomas Mottola, the chief executive officer of Sony Music Entertainment who signed acts such as the Dixie Chicks and Jennifer Lopez, resigned to start a record label in partnership with the company.
Mottola said in a statement he had been "thinking about taking up this new challenge for about a year." He worked at the company for 14 years and had two years remaining on his contract.
Sony said it would name a successor within the next few days.
Mottola moves away from Sony as the industry competes for sales with other forms of entertainment such as video games and loses compact-disc sales to free Internet downloads. Sony ranked third last year among the five major music distributors with 15.7 percent of US album sales, Nielsen SoundScan said last week.
"Sony has done well. I don't know that they have done spectacularly well," said Jay Cooper, an entertainment lawyer in Santa Monica, California, who specializes in music.
Sony Music's popular artists include Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Ozzy Osbourne. Springsteen's The Rising was nominated this week for a best-album Grammy Award.
Sony Music's revenue in the fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 6.9 percent to US$1.21 billion, while the unit's operating loss widened to US$46 million, partly from costs related to job cuts and closing distribution facilities.
Mottola and Sony spokeswoman Ann Morfogen couldn't be reached immediately to comment.
Mottola joined CBS Records in 1988 at age 37, shortly before it was acquired by Sony Corp. He was named president of Sony Music a year later. Before CBS, Mottola managed artists such as Hall & Oates, Carly Simon and John Mellencamp.
Mottola maintained a high-profile lifestyle in Manhattan, often photographed by New York's paparazzi when he was married to singer Mariah Carey. Mottola brought Carey to Sony and helped her to develop into one of the top-selling female singers in history.
Mottola is now married to Mexican actress and singer Thalia.
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