Ged Doherty

Early life and education

Doherty was born in Manchester, England. He played drums with local bands as a teenager, and attended Sheffield Polytechnic, where, as social secretary, he booked punk bands including The Damned and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Career

In 1982, Doherty founded Renegade Management. He subsequently managed artists including Paul Young and Alison Moyet. In 1992, he was recruited by Epic Records to lead international marketing. Doherty remained at Epic until 1996, when he was named managing director of Columbia Records UK.

In 1999, he became managing director of the Arista Label Group, and in 2001 was promoted to president of Arista's parent company, the BMG Music Group. He was named president of the music division of Sony BMG UK after the two companies merged in 2004 and appointed chairman and CEO of Sony Music UK in 2006.

In 2012, Doherty co-founded Raindog Films Ltd. with Colin Firth. A London-based film production company, its first feature, Eye in the Sky, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015 and was released theatrically in April 2016. It was directed by Gavin Hood and stars Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, and Barkhad Abdi. As of October 2016, it had grossed $38 million, becoming one of the best performing independent films of the year. Raindog's second film, Loving, written and directed by Jeff Nichols and starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016.

Doherty was appointed chairman of BPI and the BRIT Awards in December 2014. In 2016, Doherty addressed the lack of diversity among the organization's voting membership by inviting 700 music industry figures to join the Academy, making the 2017 invite list 52% male, 48% female, and with 17% BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) representation.

Doherty is the chairman of a music-based interactive gaming company, FOAM, and a partner and shareholder in Major Influence, an artist management company.