Barbara Cane

Vp of creative worldwide

Elevated to her current leadership role in 2017, Cane has long been pivotal to building and maintaining BMI’s relationships with both creators and industry executives. The performing rights organization experienced a major change with its sale to New Mountain Capital, which closed in February. “This new partnership will help us stay ahead in a competitive future and accelerate our long-term growth plan of maximizing distributions, investing in new technology and service offerings, improving royalty collections and customer service and adding new revenue streams, all to the benefit of our affiliates,” Cane says. “I look forward to this exciting new chapter in BMI’s history.”

Andrea Czapary Martin

CEO

In 2021, Martin laid out a five-year plan for PRS for Music, the British music copyright collecting society: “to pay out more than 1 billion pounds [$792.6 million] in 2026, at a cost ratio of 10% or less.” After 2023, for which final financial results are not yet available, “we are two years ahead of that,” says Martin, who took the job in 2019. PRS’ costs ran at 9.3% in 2022, and it expects to break the 1 billion pound barrier this year. “What differentiates us is our systems,” says Martin, who has a data background. Next up: further promoting PRS in other markets as an organization that can manage international rights.

Elizabeth Matthews

CEO

Matthews, who has guided “record-breaking revenue and royalty distributions to our ASCAP members at an overhead cost rate of 10%,” has also been aggressive in addressing the latest potential threats to creators. “Our members are stressed about the impact of AI. We produced three educational AI symposia in three different cities” to educate them about AI’s risks and opportunities, Matthews says. The board of directors adopted six principles to guide the organization’s response to AI: human creators first, transparency, consent, compensation, credit and global consistency. “We will continue this fight to protect creators as the AI issues evolve,” Matthews says.

Cristina Perpiñá-Robert

CEO

SGAE appointed Perpiñá-Robert in April, at a time when the organization was still recovering from a royalty distribution scandal that led to a two-year expulsion from the collecting society trade organization CISAC. Perpiñá-Robert was tasked with helping to restore SGAE’s international reputation, expanding its digital business and distributing 185.5 million euros ($201 million) in the first half of 2023, compared with 316.3 million euros ($341.1 million) in 2022. “SGAE is under a lot more scrutiny because of the past, so we have to make sure we’re very transparent,” Perpiñá-Robert says. As the organization celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, “we are changing our image and getting more respect.”

Cécile Rap-Veber

CEO

The 2023 financial results of the French collective management organization are not yet available, but Rap-Veber says, “You will see a double-digit increase” over 2022, when SACEM collected 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) and distributed 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion). Rap-Veber, who has led SACEM since 2021, just finished a “Tour de France” project to meet with all 1,300 of SACEM’s employees and led an internal pitch competition for staffers to suggest how AI could help in their roles. (Four will be developed this year.) “Our goal,” she says, “is to remain the best, at the lowest cost, and embrace technology and innovation.”

Anjula Singh

CFO/COO

SoundExchange, which marked 20 years in 2023, has benefited from Singh’s creative and financial leadership as it has distributed over $10 billion to creators since 2003. The past year also brought substantial capability leaps at SX Works, an integrated global publishing services and licensing division. “SX Works now has the ability to administer online recordings and mechanical publishing royalties in a single platform built on Sound­Exchange’s best-in-class technology,” Singh says. “With a comprehensive integrated musical works and sound-recordings database, we are bringing to market a powerful one-stop back-office service that can collect and distribute global royalties.”

Ellen Truley

Chief marketing and external affairs officer

The MLC, created under the Music Modernization Act, has revolutionized the way songwriters, publishers and other rights holders receive their mechanical royalties. Since 2021, the MLC has distributed over $1.5 billion in royalties to rights holders and, as of 2023, membership has grown to exceed 34,000. Truley has helped drive the expansion by engaging rights holders during 200 events in the United States, Central and South America, Asia and Europe. “Our commitment remains unwavering as we strive to serve our members and the entire music industry,” Truley says. “Looking forward, we are determined to reach new heights, ensuring that every rights holder receives their rightful U.S. mechanical royalties for music streams and downloads, accurately and on time.”