Utopia appoints Bastien Vidal as acting CFO and VP, Operational Finance

• Bastien Vidal appointed to the role of Acting Chief Finance Officer (CFO) and VP, Operational Finance reporting to Utopia’s CEO Markku Mäkeläinen
• Vidal will be responsible for supporting Utopia’s considerable growth trajectory, setting up structures and processes that drive operational finance excellence, supporting ever growing amounts of customers, acquisitions and integrations, all which need to be completed with high quality, integrity, with an increasingly shorter timeframe to outcomes
• Vidal is a highly experienced operations and finance executive with experience in high-growth organizations and larger publicly traded companies, coupled with a decade of experience in the technology start up space, and a further ten years of auditing experience with KPMG 

Zug, Switzerland, April 5 2022 – Utopia Music, the Swiss Music fintech company, announced the extension of its leadership team with the appointment of Bastien Vidal to the role of Acting Chief Finance Officer (CFO) and VP, Operational Finance. Vidal will be based in Zug, Switzerland and the company’s French offices. He will report directly to Utopia’s CEO Markku Mäkeläinen.

“To support our mission of achieving ‘Fair Pay for Every Play’, Utopia has acquired more than a dozen companies in the last year, and we will continue to acquire best of breed companies that fit our culture and strategy,” said Markku Mäkeläinen, CEO of Utopia. “As Utopia continues to move to larger and larger revenue categories of acquisitions, we want to invest in operational capabilities, in finance and integration teams, to continue to execute efficiently.”

In his role, Vidal will be responsible for supporting Utopia’s considerable growth trajectory. This will include setting up the structures and processes that drive operational finance excellence and supporting ever growing amounts of customers, acquisitions, and integrations, all which need to be completed with high quality, integrity, and with an increasingly shorter timeframe to outcomes.

Vidal is a highly experienced operations and finance executive with experience working in both high-growth organizations and larger publicly traded companies. He also brings over a decade of entrepreneurship including founding a self-sustained startup studio focusing on business software, and as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Seesmic Inc, now Hootsuite.

Vidal joins from his role as CFO of Callisto Media, a technology and media company that optimizes content creation by leveraging Big Data, AI, and lean economics. In his role, Vidal supported the Founder and CEO through the company’s hypergrowth including building the team, processes and implementing the systems to support such growth, developing the analysis and reporting structure, managing fundraising activities, both equity (Series B, C, D) and debt financing, and managing communication and reporting to investors and the Board.

“I am excited to be joining Utopia Music at such an important stage in its journey towards a better world for music,” said Bastien Vidal. “Throughout my career I have worked to scale up technology companies, and I look forward to joining the team for this next chapter of growth.”

Prior to Callisto Media, Vidal launched Founder Studio. He worked with entrepreneurs on the launch and growth of their company in the US market across fundraising and product management. From 2010-2012, Vidal was the COO of Seesmic Inc, now Hootsuite, and led the company alongside the CEO. Vidal also spent ten years at KPMG, firstly as a Manager in the Business Consulting Services department at KPMG France, and later as a manager in the audit department of the Technology and VC practices.

Bastien is a Certified Public Accountant by the California School of Accountancy and a French Chartered Accountant by both the “Ordre des ExpertsComptables” (Chartered Accountants National Board) and the “Companie Nationale des Commissaires aux Comptes” (Auditors National Board).