T
he wallpaper behind Jody Gerson’s desk
shows a pastoral landscape filled with a
menagerie of wildlife — lions, elephants
and the creatures Gerson immediately
focuses in on, birds. “I see soaring,” she
says. “I want to soar.”
Gerson has been doing just that ever
since she became chairman/CEO of Universal Music Pub-
lishing Group in January 2015, making her the first woman
chairman of a major global music company, as well as the
first woman to be named CEO of a major music publisher.
Since she took over, UMPG’s revenue has grown by 40%,
with annual revenue surpassing $1 billion for the first time
at the end of 2018. The year since has been even brighter:
Through the first three quarters of 2019, UMPG enjoyed a
12.6% increase to $910 million, ensuring another record-
setting year.
In a year of musical chairs in publishing, with new heads
installed at Sony/ATV and Warner Chappell, Gerson applied
steady, strategic force in a challenging market. As indepen-
dent publishers backed by deep-pocketed private equity
firms continue to raise catalog prices by paying stratospheric
multiples, Gerson, 58, made a series of savvy deals — par-
ticularly investing in top female songwriters such as Rosalía,
Alicia Keys, Maren Morris, Tierra Whack and City Girls. She
also continued to bolster UMPG’s bottom line by signing ad-
ministration deals with MGM and Paramount, and renewing
pacts with HBO and Amazon to lock in dependable revenue.
Gerson has also wielded her power to effect change
beyond her own company: She joined the board of the
University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion
Initiative; co-founded the nonprofit She Is the Music to
promote women songwriters and engineers; called on the
Recording Academy to increase its efforts toward greater
inclusivity, diversity and transparency; and vowed not to
sign songwriters who she knows have committed violent
crimes against others.
Meanwhile, Gerson is also reaping the benefit of pre-
scient signings from earlier in her tenure. Post Malone, for
example, was a developing act when she signed him in 2015;
his Hollywood’s Bleeding was the most popular album of last
year, earning 3 million equivalent album units in 2019.
Flying High
UMPG chairman/CEO JODY GERSON has lifted revenue to record levels while
navigating a fast-changing market — and lifting up women along the way
BY MELINDA NEWMAN PHOTOGRAPHED BY AUSTIN HARGRAVE
EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR
JANUARY 25, 2020 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 1 0 3