Fred Davis
Partner, The Raine Group
Davis, a former record executive and tal-
ent attorney, occupies one of the music
industry’s most quietly powerful positions.
Over the last two years, The Raine Group
has been involved in $500 million worth of
music-sector transactions, including the
March sale of CD Baby’s digital operations
to Downtown Music Holdings for a reported
$230 million. As both an investor and
adviser, Davis focuses on companies built
for independent artists — like SoundCloud,
free-distribution startup Amuse and Troy
Carter’s music/tech company Q&A — and
on platforms rather than content. “We
are helping to create a sustainable music
middle class for artists, which did not exist
before,” says Davis, who’s still looking to
deploy up to $100 million for each addi-
tional music-sector investment. “This is an
important development.”
Jay Sammons
Managing director/head of global consumer,
media and retail, The Carlyle Group
The private equity firm that first invested
in Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings as a
minority investor in 2017 became a key
partner in the most high-profile content
deal of 2019 when it backed Braun’s
$300 million purchase of Scott Borchetta’s
Big Machine Label Group, which included
Taylor Swift’s pre-Lover catalog. Although
Swift has criticized the deal (and the role
of private equity in the music industry),
Sammons describes it as a continuation of
Carlyle’s strategy of backing high-growth,
founder-led businesses: “We invest in
companies that have the potential for
significant growth and in business models
or brands that are going to endure over
a long period of time. We saw such an
opportunity when we invested in Ithaca in
2017, and it is the reason we supported the
company again this year. It was a fantas-
tic opportunity to combine innovative
entertainment platforms and help them
continue to build what we believe is one of
the best businesses in music.”
LEGAL
Lisa Alter
Founding partner, Alter Kendrick & Baron
As an adviser to music publishers, equity
investors, musicians and songwriters alike,
Alter oversees every aspect of her clients’
complex music publishing transactions,
from the initial exploratory stage to draft-
ing, negotiating, closing and, as she says,
going “beyond.” Alter closed out 2019 with
a bevy of complex deals, including pub-
lisher Primary Wave’s recent acquisition of
stakes in catalogs for Paul Anka
Billboard Launches The Jay Frank Award
The digital music pioneer’s legacy is recognized with a new honor,
presented this year to his colleague Mitchell Shymansky
J
AY FRANK SAW THE FUTURE.
Long before streaming came to
dominate the music industry, and
well before companies became
awash in a flood of data, the Universal
Music Group executive encouraged
others to adapt to a music business
shaped by technology.
“You can trust data,” said Frank,
who made the case early on for a
data-driven approach to answering
questions about consumer behavior.
Frank, who was UMG senior vp global
streaming marketing, died at age 47 in
October after a fight with cancer.
To recognize his legacy, Billboard
has created the Jay Frank Award for
leadership in digital music. The first
recipient is Frank’s colleague Mitchell
Shymansky, UMG vp data and analyt-
ics, who will be presented with the
honor at the Billboard Power event in
Los Angeles on Jan. 23.
Frank, a former executive at CMT
and Yahoo! Music, was the founder
of the digital-only record label DigSin
and the digital music marketing com-
pany DigMark. He came to UMG in 2015
after the music group acquired a stake
in both companies.
“He was a creative and tireless leader
who made significant contributions to
the evolution of our global marketing
efforts,” said UMG chairman/
CEO Lucian Grainge at the time
of Frank’s death. “Many of the ways we
market our artists and their music in the
streaming era stem from Jay’s innovative
work.” Billboard senior vp charts and
data development Silvio Pietroluongo
recalls that Frank urged streaming to
be factored in to the Billboard Hot 100
— over 15 years ago, when Frank was
still at Yahoo!.
Frank also realized early how fans
were using music: creating playlists
that focused on mood rather than
artists. In his first book, Futurehit. DNA
(published in 2009 just as Spotify
launched in Europe and well before
streaming got traction stateside),
Frank argued passionately that
streaming would require songwriters
to shorten introductions — because
songs were no longer built for radio. A
decade later, his warnings of waning
attention spans have proved prescient:
Tracks on the Hot 100 in 2019 were,
on average, 30 seconds shorter than
in 2018.
Shymansky recalls that he
and Frank built their working
friendship on inquisitiveness
and a belief that data analysis
can create a competitive ad-
vantage for labels fighting for
market share. To share insights
at company meetings, Frank
posed the questions and Shymansky
provided the answers.
Recalls Shymansky: “[We were] the
data nerds.” —GLENN PEOPLES
Frank
ALTER
Shymansky
SAMMONS
DAVIS
2
0
2
0
L
I
S
T
120 BILLBOARD • JANUARY 25, 2020
DAVIS:CITY^ HEADSHOTS.^ S
AMMONS:COURTESY^ OF^CARLYLE^GROUP.ALTER:^ DANIEL^WELCH.^ F
RANK,^ SHYMANSKY:^ COURTESY^OFUMG.