Jody Gerson: ‘I have to tell my story authentically.’ “I can’t believe you haven’t heard about celery juice yet...” Jody Gerson is tipping us on the next big thing. Bearing in mind she’s been ahead of the curve on everyone from Billie Eilish to SZA, Post Malone and Alicia Keys during her career, we’re listening. (The radiance of our skin, we’re promised, will thank us.) Philadelphia-born Gerson, a mother of two teenagers and one older son, thinks a lot about making the most of every hour. She wakes at 5.30 am each morning “just to have some time to myself” – an indicative trait of someone who says she was never in the top 10 smartest girls at her school, but who keenly studied her way to over-achievement. Whatever Gerson’s secret is (and we’ll wager there’s a lot more to it than celery juice) it’s working. Since she took over as Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group in January 2015, the company’s annual revenues have grown by some 40%, surpassing a major milestone in 2018 by topping $1 billion for the first time. Gerson’s professional highlights over the past four years have included signing of some of the biggest new talent such as Eilish, Halsey, Post Malone, SZA, Rosalía and Quavo, plus Tobias Jesso Jr, Shawn Mendes and Ariana Grande – in addition to deals for established acts like Prince, Elton John, Barry Gibb, Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Carly Simon, Bruce Springsteen and Jack White. Despite her history in A&R, Gerson is at pains to note that UMPG shouldn’t only be judged by its active roster: she is particularly proud of the company’s technology
advancements, for one thing. “When I first took the job, there was a distrust between songwriters and publishers here, so we made sure our system was completely transparent,” she says. UMPG has also doubled down on film and TV music under Gerson’s leadership, via deals with the likes of Lionsgate, Paramount, Disney Europe (and numerous other territories), Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, MGM, HBO, Amazon and more – steady income sources which Gerson says provide “cover” for A&R risk-taking at the company. Ultimately, though, Gerson says the biggest strides at UMPG under her leadership have been made by “betting on talent and betting on songs” and “running this company with integrity – people out there believe us.” Having graduated from Northwestern University, Gerson began her career at Chappell Music in New York in an entrylevel position. After rising to A&R and song plugger, she then bagged a job at EMI Music Publishing where she stayed for 17 years, serving as head of the company’s East Coast publishing division and then revitalizing and leading its West Coast division. At EMI, she signed Dallas Austin, Jermaine Dupri, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones and Enrique Iglesias, among others. Gerson then moved to Sony/ATV for the next seven years of her career, where she rose to co-President and signed Lady Gaga, Mac Miller, Pitbull and more. This all meant that, for close to quarter of a century, Gerson worked under Martin Bandier, before she left in 2015 to join Sir Lucian Grainge at Universal Music Group – where Gerson also sits on
the executive board. MBW recently sat down in Gerson’s Santa Monica office to dig into her life, her motivations, and her determination to make a material difference in the lives of songwriters... You’re the first female boss of a multinational music company. What do you think about that? I’m proud to be the first, but it’s part of my mission not to be the only one. I vacillate between [liking] being thought of as a ‘female Chairman’ and just a ‘Chairman’, but at the end of the day, I’m both. I feel a great responsibility to do right by other women. That’s why [in 2018] after the Grammys and with the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative [which showed how poorly women are represented in music], we created She Is The Music, a nonprofit to increase the number of women working in [the industry]. I feel like I have to give back to the business, and I feel that I also have to tell my story authentically. Everything that I went through to get me here is an experience that other women could have, or that they could learn from. It’s important to me to help push women into senior positions. It’s very natural for women to say to themselves, ‘Wait, how am I gonna do this? I have three kids at home and I’m divorced. I’m this and that – how am I gonna manage it?’ You kind of have to go, ‘Yes, you can do this.’ After five years in this job, I feel very comfortable and very competent. You haven’t always felt that level of comfort as a Chairman? When I took this job, I had to 43
