I've always been obsessed with music and spent my allowance on CDs until the internet took over, and then I spent all my time combing through Myspace and blogs for new artists. When I was in college at Franklin & Marshall in PA, I had a weekly radio show on our college station WFNM. The presidents of the station went to SXSW one year and brought back all of the business cards they’d collected. I reached out to every single one of them asking for an internship and it was all uphill from there!

I think the most important lesson I’ve learned is that even if an artist is sonically similar to another artist, it doesn’t mean that anything else about them is the same— even their fanbase.

I think the role is two-fold. One is to help the artist engage and super-serve their existing fans via the huge array of digital tools we have available to us. The other is to do everything in your power to introduce the artist to potential new fans online using those same tools.

I’m thrilled that videos have continued to thrive post-MTV TRL days. I think they are just as important now as they ever were, especially in the streaming era, for an artist to showcase their personality or artistic vision. I’m seeing more and more artists make videos for album tracks that aren’t singles—it’s such a great way to serve a fan base or to serve as content for a new fan to get to know you through.

I don’t think anyone can deny at this point that Ed is a brilliant songwriter and a real artist through and through, and it’s an honor to be a part of his US label team. When I heard No. 6 Collaborations Project was coming (a continuation of his 2011 self-released No. 5 Collaborations Project) I took a moment to reflect on how much he’s accomplished in less than a decade. It was so much fun to watch all the creative come together and help market the record to all the fans of both Ed and the incredible list of featured artists on it.

I don’t, actually. I think they are two entirely different things. It’s totally possible that more artists will start releasing collaboration albums like Ed’s, but I believe there is space for both structures to live within an artist’s discography.

Jac Holzman, the founder of Elektra, came to the office to speak about the original creation of the label. The list of legacy artists that he brought in such as The Doors, Carly Simon, and Judy Collins are so incredible, and to be part of the team keeping that legacy alive with our current roster of amazing songwriters is extremely important to me and what I’m constantly looking forward to.

However, what stuck with me from that talk was something else—Jac didn’t have a ton of music to release in the early 1960s, so he had Elektra put out vinyl releases of various sound effects. A simple idea, but to me represented something more—a sense of resourcefulness and a tenacity that I think we all strive to carry on as well.

Streaming music is great, but no one is becoming a fan of an artist just by passively listening to playlists that the artist is included on. I think over the next 5 years we’re going to see more innovation in how both new and established artists can speak directly to fans, as well as more focus on personality-driven video content to make a real connection between listeners and the artists they’ve discovered through streaming.