Harvey Mason Jr.

You see the rise of piano and all the different genres, Afrobeats. And we had the voters. We had the support. They proposed the award. It's now in.

The framework for making decisions around awards is very different than my personal framework around decisions that I'd like to implement at the academy. As it relates to awards, it's a very straightforward process. The awards or other changes and proposals are different. introduced by our members.

They're discussed through appropriate committee, whether it's planning and governance or awards and nominations. It goes through the committee system. They vote it up or down. It then goes to the board of trustees, and it gets voted up or down. And I don't have a vote in those things. I try and make sure the conversations are going in the right direction, but that really comes down to

our board and our chair. Once those things are put in place, then I have to decide how to implement them. And that's a pretty straightforward process around awards. But maybe the broader question you're asking is like, how do I personally, how do I CEO? How do I make the decisions in my role?

And I spend a lot of time listening, to be honest, and I'm not sure what the answer is for some of your other people that you've interviewed or other CEOs, but I don't pretend to know more than I know. I'm a lifetime learner, not a knower. And so when it comes time for a decision, I tend to move relatively quickly. I don't sit and stew.

I think perfection sometimes can get in the way of making progress. So I'll listen. I'll assemble my team. I'll get the information that I need to make an educated and strategic decision. and then I'll weigh it.

And to this point, my instincts and my finger has been on the pulse of what our organization wants or needs, and our members seem to be resonating with the decisions that have been happening. But if my personal taste or feelings fall out of favor with that, then it would really change my decision-making process.

Because a lot of what I do is gather the information and decide from here what I think is right. It's almost like making music, to tell you the truth. I was a songwriter and producer for years, and If you're making music for everybody else and you're trying to guess what's next and you're trying to make people happy, you're going to make the same music that everyone else is making.

But if you're making music that turns you on, that excites you, that you love as a creator, and then you come out, as long as your tastes are aligned with the consumers, you'll win. So I feel the same way in the way I like to run our organization. A lot of listening, a lot of collaborating, and then trying to make smart, swift, thoughtful decisions.

Yeah.

Definitely a sea change, transformational turning point in our organization. Yeah. it was a very difficult decision to be honest, because CBS has been a great partner. They've done amazing work with us, I believe for 54 shows. And when I came into this role, I realized that we had four years until there would be a renegotiation.

And I really had a vision and a plan for where I thought the Academy would needed to go, and partially that's why they have me in this role is to come figure out what that vision is and make sure we're executing on it, aligning with the board of trustees and our executive leadership and the executive committee, we know what has to happen.

And the idea behind who is going to be our partner to help us get there was a big part of that decision-making process. And we met with several people. And ultimately ended up going with a different partner because of the fact that it really aligned with our future vision and where we wanted to go and how we wanted to continue to build and grow the organization.

But more importantly, how we could serve more people and execute on our mission in a broader, wider, deeper scale. So we're really excited about the future.

That was really the decision-making factor. I wanted to know what our options were and make sure that we were exploring all possibilities. I'm in this role temporarily for however long I'm here, but I'm really a fiduciary and a steward of the brand. I think it's an institution that needs to be protected. It's a not-for-profit. We're not doing this other than to serve music people.

So the idea was, how can we reach the best deal? How can we find the partner that most aligns with the future vision of the organization? So it was an opportunity to explore the market. I thought that only made sense.

Even with the 54-year history that we had with CBS, again, being great partners, I think anyone would say, if you have the opportunity to see what else is there, you should take a look and try and find that right alignment going forward.

I will say we had other options. Probably won't go too much deeper than that, just out of respect for our partners on both sides. But CBS has been amazing to work with. And I also really look forward to seeing what's going to come next in our new partnership.

Well, you've nailed it. We have to have the right TV partner, not only for the, revenue, but also for the future of the brand and the health of the organization. And for the good of the music community, what we do is to try and lift music and music creators. And how can we do that in the widest possible scale is something that I'm always thinking about.

But as it relates to CBS and their streaming platform versus ABC Disney, I just have to say that CBS has been great. We're going to make two more shows with them. They had a lot of very, very positive aspects of why we've been with them and why we might have considered to go forward. But we also had to look at the future of consumption.