Scooter Braun is stepping back from his role as CEO of HYBE America after four years at the head of the U.S. arm of the South Korean entertainment giant.
Braun will stick around in an executive advisory capacity, serving as director of the board and senior advisor to HYBE chairman/CEO Bang Si-Hyuk. This will allow Braun to pursue other ventures outside of HYBE going forward. (He still remains the second-largest individual shareholder in the conglomerate behind global superstars like BTS and Tomorrow X Together.)
In a statement, Chairman Bang called Braun “an extraordinary partner, a visionary executive, and a true catalyst for cultural exchange.” He added: “His contributions have been vital in establishing our ambitious presence in the U.S. market. I am deeply grateful for his leadership, his astute instincts and his unwavering passion for artists. We wish him immense success in his exciting next chapter and look forward to continuing our partnership in executing HYBE’s global vision.”
Braun called his time at HYBE “one of the most inspiring chapters of my professional journey” and complimented Bang as “a true visionary and a musical genius.” Braun continued: “What he has built with HYBE is unparalleled. I am incredibly proud of our collective accomplishments and look forward to supporting Chairman Bang and CEO Jason Jaesang Lee in their continued success as I step into what’s next.”
Braun and HYBE have been in business with each other since April 2021, when the conglomerate acquired a 100 percent stake in Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. At the time, Ithaca comprised a variety of different endeavors and entities, including Braun’s management company SB Projects (which represented Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, J Balvin, and more), a publishing company, and the country label Big Machine Label Group. (When HYBE acquired Ithaca, it had already sold off Taylor Swift’s catalog to Shamrock Capital.)
A couple of months after the sale, it was announced that Braun would serve as co-CEO of HYBE America with Lenzo Yoon Seok-jun. In early 2023, Braun was confirmed as the sole CEO of HYBE America, and the role soon became the primary focus of his career. In mid-2024, Braun officially retired from artist management after 23 years.
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Braun brokered several major deals for HYBE America during his tenure. In February 2023, after he was confirmed as sole CEO, he helped HYBE complete a $300 million acquisition of Quality Control, the Atlanta-based hip-hop company behind groups like Migos, Lil Baby, City Girls, and Lil Yachty.
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Last year, HYBE inked a new distribution deal with Universal Music Group, which put Braun at the head of all promotional and marketing collaborations between the two conglomerates in North America. HYBE America also struck its own distribution partnership with Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def Recordings; the partnership reunited Braun with Dupri, who gave Braun some of his earliest shots in the music business as a 19-year-old club promoter. Just this past February, Braun was part of a team-up between HYBE and Ryan Tedder to form a new boy band.
Amid all these successes, though, HYBE has also been embroiled in a string of recent controversies. One of its subsidiaries, ADOR, underwent a leadership shake-up last year, which precipitated a fallout with K-pop stars NewJeans that’s still being litigated in court. Investigators in South Korea have also launched an investigation into Chairman Bang on allegations of fraudulent stock transactions.
