Jody Gerson is the CEO and Chair of Santa Monica-headquartered Universal Music Publishing Group.<\/p>\n
Gerson joined UMPG in 2015, having previously operated as Co-President of Sony\/ATV Music Publishing.<\/p>\n
In doing so, she became the first woman to run and chair a major global music company.<\/p>\n
Jody Gerson began her career at Warner\/Chappell Music, working there for six years.<\/p>\n
After a successful stint at Warner\/Chappell, Gerson joined EMI Music Publishing as Head of their East Coast publishing unit. After managing this unit for three years, Gerson was tasked with revamping EMI\u2019s stalled West Coast publishing division. She led EMI\u2019s West Coast division for seventeen years, constructing a roster of songwriters which proved to be both commercially and critically acclaimed.<\/p>\n
Gerson signed acts such as Alicia Keys and Norah Jones. Alicia Keys\u2013who was fourteen-years-old when signed by Gerson\u2013secured five Grammy Awards and sold 10,000,000 copies with her debut album. Norah Jones likewise won five Grammy Awards for her album Come Away with Me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
After twenty years at EMI, Gerson moved to Sony\/ATV Music Publishing to serve as Co-President. She signed and managed artists including Pharrell Williams, Enrique Iglesias, Mac Miller, and Pitbull. In one of her first moves at Sony, Gerson signed the unknown Lady Gaga who would later become one of the most globally renowned artists.<\/p>\n
Six years after joining Sony\/ATV, Gerson relocated to UMPG to assume the role of Chairman and CEO in 2015. Since then, Gerson has led UMPG to increase revenues by 76% and has played a key role in signing new artists and purchasing the catalogs of aging artists. Artists signed by Gerson include Kendrick Lamar, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, and Harry Styles. She also led the acquisition of Bob Dylan\u2019s songwriting catalog for an estimated $300 million dollars.<\/p>\n
In all of Jody Gerson\u2019s previous positions, she continuously worked for Martin Bandier. As reported by Music Business Worldwide<\/a>, Gerson stated that she \u201ctook the [UMPG] job after being in the music business for about 25 years, working for basically the same person through various companies.\u201d When renegotiating her contract at Sony\/ATV to become the sole President, Bandier \u201cjust wouldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of following Bandier as she had done for a quarter-century, Gerson was done being the \u201cloyal good girl\u201d\u00a0 and decided to \u201ctake [her] power\u201d by moving to UMPG.<\/p>\n In doing so, Gerson noted that she was fighting against the male-dominated status quo of the executive ranks in the music industry. Instead of replicating how men have run music companies, Gerson has made it her mission<\/a> to \u201c[identify] women\u2026who can succeed and excel,\u201d while also \u201cmaking sure we change the culture so that they also have full lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jody Gerson is the CEO and Chair of Santa Monica-headquartered Universal Music Publishing Group. Gerson joined UMPG in 2015, having previously operated as Co-President of Sony\/ATV Music Publishing. In doing so, she became the first woman to run and chair a major global music company. Jody Gerson: Career History Jody Gerson began her career at … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":66594,"template":"","class_list":["post-98229","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/98229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/people"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people\/98229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}