JODY GERSON:
THE HITS INTERVIEW (PART 2)
LB: To me, your job is overwhelming. There are so many parts to it. The different people in every country and different languages. How do you get your arms around it?
It was overwhelming before I took the job. The idea of running a global company was overwhelming—until I realized that if you have great executives, people you trust, it’s easy. My CFO, JW Beekman, is extraordinary. Marc Cimino, my COO, as well.
When Lucian offered me the job, he said, "Listen, you’re gonna be running a company now. People aren’t gonna like you. You’re gonna have to make hard decisions. You’re not gonna be in music. You’re running a company." And I said, "Then why would you want to hire me? Why don’t you let me hire a really strong number two who has a skillset I don’t have?" Before I took the job, I had a conversation with Michelle Jubelirer. I said, “How am I gonna do this? They have the worst relationship with their labels.” I knew that a key to the job was having relationships with the Universal labels, which I had at Sony, because I had all the big UMG acts for publishing.
So I called Michelle. The beauty of our business now is that there are extraordinary women who are also now running things, and they’re my friends. I called her and said, “What am I gonna do?” She said, “There’s this guy, Marc Cimino—just meet him.”
Marc and I had coffee before I took the job, while he was at Warner, and we just hit it off. I never interviewed anybody else—I just thought, This is my guy. The same feeling I get about talent I get about executives. He was really patient while I worked out my deal. And the way we run the company might be different from other people. In terms of direct reports, Marc is in charge of pretty much everybody around the world—all the MDs except for France and the U.K., who report to me. We over-communicate with each other.
I have [Chief Counsel and Head of Business Affairs] David Kokakis, who’s the best dealmaker. Before I took the job, I was like, I don’t know how royalties are calculated in Russia! But I don’t have to, because although I make the ultimate decision, I have people everywhere who are really good at their jobs. They come to me with choices, and I’ll make the decision. But I trust their instincts and their expertise.
LB: Give us a short look at a day in the life.
I trained myself to wake up really early when I had kids who were little, because I really needed that hour to myself. So I get up at like 5:45 or 6:00, make coffee, make my mother some oatmeal—she lives with me. I take my vitamins and then I watch CNBC, because we’re a public company now. I read my news. I meditate and then I either do yoga or Pilates or I walk with friends.
I think post-pandemic work is different than pre-pandemic work. I’m in the office three or four times a week. I like that collaboration, being with people. So I head to the office. We have departmental meetings once a week. I have MD meetings once a week. Yesterday I had the most delicious morning. I had breakfast with a potential signing, a producer-writer from the U.K., at the Chateau Marmont, where he was staying. He was here with Richard Russell from XL, and they had set up studio space in a bungalow at the Chateau.
He said, "Come meet Richard," whom we published—[UMPG U.K. boss] Mike McCormack had signed him on his last album. He’s legendary. We had this conversation with Richard Russell, and it was so much fun to hear. This is somebody who signed Adele and was an artist and had this amazing independent label. I’ve read his book and it was, like, Oh my God, I get to do this. So my day is often filled with meetings with artists and songwriters. Just last night, Emile Haynie and I had a dinner party for Rina Sawayama, who is signed to us out of the U.K. by a young A&R exec named Collette Goodfellow.
Rina is also in the new John Wick movie. I think she could be a really important artist, and so I wanted to surround her with songwriters in L.A. whom she didn’t know. So Emile and I had this fun dinner party with a jam session. We had a chef, and it was Jeff Bhasker and Tobias Jesso Jr. and Dave Bayley from Glass Animals, Emile, Rina and a couple other cool people. And it was just so creative people could do their thing. This is one of the things we do—we make connections. Emile and I are hoping to do this regularly.
LB: And what about your relationship with Lucian?
He’s so incredibly supportive of me. He’s available to me when I need him. He’ll question me, but he lets me do my thing. Every once in a while I’ll say to him, "I’m at a loss. I’m stuck. I’m not sure." And he draws it out of me. He’s never told me what to do, ever. He’s been the most supportive boss.
But also, I worked for Marty Bandier for almost the entirety of my career. Because I started working for Marty when I was practically a child, our relationship was different. Marty was beyond supportive and taught me everything I know about being a music publisher. And we’re still very, very close. And I adore him. And we had so much fun when he was out for Grammy week. He was so great and so happy. And it’s important to me to recognize what he gave me. But I brought all of that to this.
Frankly, I like being a boss. And I like being a boss on my terms and in that role. And I like the power of being the boss. I think it takes time to realize who you are.
The generation of women who came before me didn’t get to do what I get to do, because they had to be in the boys’ club, or at least had to want to be in with the boys. Because all we knew was the boys. There wasn’t a sisterhood. Every woman who had a position held on to that position and didn’t necessarily have children, didn’t necessarily have fuller lives beyond music because in order to do it, you had to be a certain way. And I think my generation got to do it a little differently, to redefine it. So I think the generation after me is really redefining it. But in taking this job, I vowed to myself that I was doing so as a person who is a mother, who was a wife or who is a partner. I wasn’t doing this job as somebody trying to do it the way the men did it.
I am very conscious of family and I’m very conscious that the people who work at the company should be able to do what I do, which was make sure I went to a dance recital or went to a baseball game. Everybody should be able to do that no matter what level. And I think today people do that. But eight years ago? I tell a story about a woman who was talking to Marc and me within our first two weeks of work at Universal. And she was, like, “I’m getting calls about my son’s last baseball game.” And Marc said, “What are you doing here? Get in your car and go to the baseball game.” And she was, like, “What, you mean the world’s not gonna end?” No, the world’s not gonna end. We trust you. Family is important. This is not one that you want to miss. When I had my first kid, I think I was on a plane within 12 weeks because I didn’t want anyone to think that having a kid would slow me down.
LB: In New York if you had a dinner, you never saw your kids.
I don’t think so either. But I also think to be a male executive—and this is a big generalization—first of all, it’s great to have a wife. It’s harder to be a woman who has a husband or a partner. It’s just different. But also, and I don’t know if it’s true for all women, but for me as a mom, no matter where I am in the world and what meeting I’m in, in the back of my head, it’s, like, Okay, where’s Daisy? Where’s Julian? Where’s Luke? Is everybody OK? And it’s in my head all the time. I don’t think that many male executives I know have that same thing; they’re at work.
SG: I was talking to a pretty highly placed record executive not long ago who described herself as a mama bear for her artists. That seems like part of a transformative thing in work and culture that’s been percolating.
And it’s about to get bigger. I really feel like, as a mom, I’m really good. For example, I was connecting Tobias to Rina on text. They met last night, and he’s, like, “Thank you, Mom.”
LB: I see it with my wife, who came from the first generation that saw they could have it all.
Ish! But the generation before you didn’t have that opportunity. I remember watching Polly Anthony with the guys, and she could hang with the guys. Michele Anthony, too. I didn’t think that was something I could do. That’s not where I wanted to be. I always knew when to leave a room. I always knew when the guys were onto the next activity that wasn’t gonna include me. And I gave them a pass. When I was coming up and hanging out in Atlanta at the studios, I knew when to leave. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t know. It just was what it was.
LB: Polly was the first woman I ever knew who not only didn’t leave the room but almost was the room.
She was the room. I was different than that. I think I also was very conscious of being safe. Also, I’m a music publisher; I wasn’t at a record company. I wasn’t dealing with the Tommy [Mottola]s and the Donnie [Ienner]s and that level. It was a different world, but it was a world that worked for me. And I was also married at the time. Daisy, my daughter, asked me the other day if people hit on me. I said, “I honestly don’t know.” Maybe I didn’t want it to be so. I had one uncomfortable thing, but I knew when to leave. I’m not saying that I was better or worse than anyone else.
It was always in the back of my mind. I know that Michele and Polly were friends, but the women of the business weren’t in it together. And I think now we’ve got amazing, smart, classy women who are coming together, who recognize that we have strength in numbers. Rather than this idea that the man is gonna pat us on the shoulder and be our savior. We have to push each other into position and work together to create a new landscape. And I am especially proud of what we’ve accomplished with She Is The Music. I started that organization with Alicia Keys, whom I originally signed when she was 15.
I think we all collectively—and I hope I put this out there to women and that they believe me—we’re only gonna be as successful as we all want to be if we support each other the way men support each other.
Because men do support each other. They’ll be, like, “Hey dude, you need something? Sure. I got you.” Not "Are you good enough for that job? Do you have all the qualifications?" They’ll say, "Yeah, I’ll set you up for it." Women need to do that with each other. And we need to be honest and tell our stories honestly and authentically so that we all are in it together and get it.
I had it in my head: Can I really run a company with three kids and be divorced? I don’t know if I can. And other women said to me, "Yes, you can. And you’re gonna have to do it, because you’re gonna have to show us how to do it." And so not only is it my responsibility to have this job, but it’s also my responsibility to show women that they could do it, too. And I take that responsibility very seriously.
Just to touch on my childhood, speaking of responsibility: I grew up thinking we were really rich. We were in the nightclub business, a cash business. In my sophomore year of college—and my mother hates when I talk about this—my father bounced my tuition check. While it was incredibly painful, and I’m sure I have no real memory of how painful it was, it changed my life for the best because I had to take care of things. I tell my children this: You can’t become extraordinary without having something extraordinary to overcome. Bumps in the road are okay. How do you get over them? I think it defined me, because it made me really self-sufficient. It’s probably also why I work for a company. It isn’t that I’m not entrepreneurial.
SG: But you didn’t feel the need to hang up your own shingle.
No. And I think that experience is probably why.
LB: Anything you’d like to add that we haven’t specifically addressed?
Here’s the other great thing about my job: In being a true music publisher, I get to be a great partner. I’m not looking to take anybody’s role. I’m a partner to managers. We have Harry Styles and Kid Harpoon. I speak to Jeffrey Azoff every single day. I think it’s really important to know that our job is being part of the world of artists, but as a partner.
