Billboard’s 2019 Power 100

The streaming-fueled comeback of recorded music is expanding the entire business, shaking up established hierarchies and creating new kingmakers. This year, 55 fresh faces join Billboard's annual ranking of industry influence. PLUS: Introducing the New Power Generation -- 25 disrupters who will define the future of the business.

NO. 7

OLIVER SCHUSSER
VP Apple Music and international content, Apple

AMANDA MARKS
Global head of business development and music partnerships, Apple

ZANE LOWE
Global creative director/host, Apple Music

LARRY JACKSON
Global creative director, Apple Music

BEBHINN GLEESON
Global director of original content, Apple Music

RACHEL NEWMAN
Global director of editorial, Apple Music

50 MILLION PAID SUBSCRIBERS: “We don’t actually wake up and look at our growth rate,” says Apple Music’s new commander-in-chief, Oliver Schusser, not entirely convincingly. After all, under his leadership, the on-demand streaming service reached a new milestone -- 50 million paid subscribers across 115 countries -- in just its third full year of operation.

Schusser’s April promotion (and Jimmy Iovine’s transition to a consulting role) also signaled a new chapter in the evolution of the world’s No. 2 streaming platform with Schusser’s core leadership team of Amanda Marks, Bebhinn Gleeson, Rachel Newman, Larry Jackson and Zane Lowe all rising to global roles.

“We’re just at the beginning,” says Schusser, citing the tech giant’s recently completed acquisitions of Shazam and indie artist-services company Platoon, as well as its January mobile integration deal with Verizon, as evidence of Apple Music’s “truly global” ambitions.

When it comes to programming, Schusser says he is “deeply worried” about the domination of algorithms in streaming and encourages his team to “hand-curate” everything on the platform. Jackson and Lowe have formed a new artist-relations department, and Lowe will also continue to host and lead Beats 1’s direction, including programming hosted by Nicki Minaj, Travis Scott and Billie Eilish. Marks, Gleeson and Newman respectively head business development, original content and editorial initiatives, such as Apple Music’s developing-artist platform, Up Next, which in 2018 gave a boost to rapper Juice WRLD, R&B singer H.E.R. and Puerto Rican trap star Bad Bunny, who became Apple’s most-streamed Latin artist on the heels of his Drake-assisted hit, “MIA” -- the first all-Spanish-language song to crown Apple Music’s U.S. Top Songs chart.

Drake also figures in what Schusser calls the high-water mark of Apple Music’s 2018. His LP, Scorpion, became the first to generate 1 billion streams globally in a single week and scored the biggest first day of release numbers in Apple Music’s history: 170 million streams. Says Schusser: “It broke every record.”

NO. 32

AARON BAY-SCHUCK, 37
Co-chairman/CEO, Warner Bros. Records

TOM CORSON, 58
Co-chairman/COO, Warner Bros. Records

RECORD 50-WEEK CHART RUN FOR BEBE REXHA: In the year since Corson took over Warner Bros. Records, Bebe Rexha (and Florida Georgia Line) spent a record 50 weeks at the top of the Hot Country Songs chart with "Meant to Be," while Dua Lipa's "New Rules" broke the record for most weeks spent on the Mainstream Top 40 chart: 45. Best new artist Grammy nominations followed for both. "We needed to re-energize, refresh and rebuild," says the former RCA chief, who steered the label solo until Bay-Schuck joined in October. WBR's new CEO, who oversees the label's creative direction and A&R, calls his partnership with Corson an "arranged marriage" that works. "Tom has operational acumen that I've never seen before," he says.

MUSIC TREND HE'D LIKE TO SEE IN 2019: (Corson) "The next iteration of rock'n'roll."

NO. 43

ELIZABETH COLLINS, 51
SUSAN GENCO, 53

Co-presidents, The Azoff Company

$125 MILLION TO BUY BACK THEIR COMPANY: It's a new era for Irving Azoff's entertainment behemoth: In December, Collins and Genco completed their mentor's bid to "buy back" full control of his music management company -- which, after a 2013 merger, became Azoff MSG Entertainment -- through a $125 million purchase of Madison Square Garden's 50 percent stake. "We love MSG, we'll stay close to them, but now we're looking forward to the next five years and new opportunities," says Collins of the split. Genco's 2018 also included negotiating a last-minute compromise between SiriusXM and the three majors that cleared the way for the passage of the Music Modernization Act. Disruption remains a core value for the joint leaders, who oversee a portfolio that includes Global Music Rights, Oak View Group, Lane One and Full Stop Management.

NO. 56

MIKE CAREN, 41
Founder/CEO, Artist Partner Group

34 HOT 100 HITS: Caren's Artist Partner Group placed a whopping 34 singles on the Hot 100 in 2018 (up from 22 in 2017), netting 1.7 percent of the year's total streaming market share. The publishing side reaped hits with Amy Allen, who co-wrote Halsey's recent Hot 100 No. 1 "Without Me," and Madison Love, who co-penned Ava Max's U.K. No. 1 "Sweet but Psycho." On the A&R side, Caren oversaw breakthroughs across "every genre," including highlights like Lil Skies' debut LP, Life of a Dark Rose, which went RIAA-certified gold in November, and pop artist Bazzi, whose viral crossover "Mine" led to opening tour slots with Justin Timberlake and Camila Cabello. " 'Mine' broke like records should in this era," says Caren about the song's six-month build from Snapchat meme to Mainstream Top 40 chart-topper. "People love surprises."

CANCEL: "Millennial entitlement."

NO. 67

DARCUS BEESE
President, Island Records

ERIC WONG
COO, Island Records

BUILDING ON 4.5 BILLION MENDES STREAMS: In July 2018, Beese moved from the top job at Island Records U.K. to the U.S. equivalent, joining Wong, who was promoted to COO in August. Their mandate: to build on the label's roster of veteran acts -- including Bon Jovi and Fall Out Boy -- and its current phenom Shawn Mendes, who has generated 4.5 billion career streams and sold 1.2 million albums. Beese -- whose A&R talent benchmark remains the late Amy Winehouse, whom he signed in 2002 -- counts rising R&B singer-songwriter Jessie Reyez as the label's next priority. "I hadn't come across someone that moved me in an emotional way since Amy," says Beese, who is teeing up Reyez's debut LP later this year. "She has the potential to be one of the greats."

No. 68

DAVID MASSEY, 61
President/CEO, Arista Records

A LABEL REBORN WITH 15 SIGNINGS: With 15 artists signed and counting, Massey's reboot of Arista Records is in full deployment. The former Island Records chief is reviving Clive Davis' legendary label with an eye to Gen Z artist development. "We want career-driven artists, diversity and quality," says Massey, whose three-tier partnership with Sony Music includes his own management and publishing companies under the moniker Work of Art. Officially launched in July, Arista 2.0 has already borne fruit with Stephen Puth (Charlie's younger brother), Tel Aviv native Dennis Lloyd and Lithuanian producer Dynoro, whose breakout hit, "In My Mind" (with Gigi D'Agostino), hit No. 4 on the Dance Mixshow/Airplay chart and, according to Massey, generated over 850 million global on-demand streams.

EXECUTIVE COACH: "David Geffen. He taught me integrity and to always put the artist first, above anything else."

No. 79

STEVE LEVINE, 63
ROB PRINZ, 60
Partners/co-heads of worldwide concerts, ICM Partners

MARK SIEGEL, 65
Partner/head of music, ICM Partners

ROBERT GIBBS, 41
Partner/music agent, ICM Partners

TWO TOUR SELLOUTS FOR H.E.R.: With a roster that includes Migos, Lil Yachty and J. Cole, ICM again scored in the urban sector with its most recent A&R coup: H.E.R. The enigmatic R&B singer and RCA signing (real name: Gabi Wilson) tallied five Grammy noms, including best new artist and album of the year. In 2018, the team executed H.E.R.'s second sold-out headlining trek in North America, according to the agency, with the 21-date I Used to Know Her tour, which ended in December. "A [21-year-old] that plays five instruments -- there's not a lot of artists that have the ability to do that," says Gibbs of the act, whose name stands for Having Everything Revealed. "She sits in a lane on her own."

No. 94

PASQUALE ROTELLA, 44
Founder/CEO, Insomniac Events

A RECORD 1.5 MILLION FESTIVALGOERS: Insomniac rang in its 25th anniversary in 2018 with “record attendance in the States,” says Rotella, adding that over 1.5 million attended Insomniac events across North America, with five-digit festivalgoer increases at its Live Nation-backed mainstays Electric Daisy Carnival (in Mexico and Orlando, Fla.), Nocturnal Wonderland and HARD Summer. And after exporting EDC to Japan in 2017, Rotella added Shanghai and Guangdong, China, to the EDC roster in 2018 and announced Insomniac’s first EDC Korea, set for Seoul in August. “The excitement for dance music there feels like the excitement that was here in 2011,” says Rotella.

POWER ACCESSORY: “An alien-mind-control-deflection unit. I wore it at Countdown [festival in San Bernardino, Calif.].”

No. 96

RUSSELL FAIBISCH, 41
Co-founder/chairman/CEO/executive producer, ULTRA Worldwide 

ADAM RUSSAKOFF, 48
Executive producer/director of business affairs, ULTRA Worldwide

83 MILLION ULTRA WORLDWIDE LIVESTREAMS: Since co-founding ULTRA Worldwide in 1999, Faibisch -- and since 2005, his partner Russakoff -- have grown it into one of the world’s largest music festival brands. They say they have sold over 1 million tickets in 27 countries in 2018 and generated over 83 million livestream views of their events. The company rang in its 20th birthday last March with a monumental bash for its flagship Ultra Music Festival at Miami’s Bayfront Park. The sold-out three-day spin, anchored by a surprise Swedish House Mafia reunion, drew 165,000 attendees and featured surprise appearances by Halsey, Desiigner and Will Smith.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8496601/billboard-2019-power-100-list