Isabel Garvey has always been someone who is willing to embrace change, who will invest in new technologies, adjust business structures or look for patterns in consumer behaviour. And, days before being presented with the Music Week Women In Music Award for Outstanding Contribution, she turned towards another huge change and announced she would be stepping down from her role as chief operating officer at Warner Music UK in December.
Garvey informed colleagues that her decision was made following the reorganisation at the major last month when Tony Harlow stepped down as CEO. Under the new framework, Atlantic and Warner Records presidents report to US management, while Warner Music UK’s other teams will be overseen directly by Simon Robson, president, EMEA, Recorded Music.
“The structure of our UK business has changed quite fundamentally,” Garvey tells Music Week. “I've worked with leadership here to figure out if there's a path for me going forward. But, I think, the structure has changed so much that there isn't much of a COO role anymore. So it felt incredibly logical to step down and think about the next thing. I do wish everyone at Warner, and the new structure, well. I am sure it will be a raving success.”
Garvey’s time at Warner has been full of highs. Since joining in 2023, she has overseen the commercial, legal, business affairs and artist relations teams, as well as Rhino Records UK and The Firepit Studios. This has included restructuring the commercial team and establishing a data and insight team.
“There was always a brilliant data team here at Warner, so it was just about creating easy reference tools,” she says. “It’s almost like a new language of how we communicate with the artists and with the labels, to make sure that the data is actually changing behaviour and really accelerating artists profiles… We have a lot of data scientists who've done really smart work around the correlation between social media discovery and streaming. It has been a really exciting area to be in, it felt very cutting edge.”
The new approach has paid off, accelerating titles like Charli XCX’s Music Week Award-winning Brat and Coldplay’s Moon Music. Garvey has also overseen social media work with catalogue artists, with campaigns for The Smiths, Fleetwood Mac and Madonna resulting in big numbers on both DSPs and TikTok.
“I won’t say there’s a magic formula, it’s not as though we can press a button and have a number one,” she says. “But it is really interesting because we're experiencing quite a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour at the moment.”
Prior to her work as COO of Warner, Garvey was the managing director of Universal Music’s Abbey Road Studios, where, amongst many other things, she launched the legendary venue’s digital production services and Europe's first incubator for music tech innovation. She has also held various other senior roles, including SVP of commercial channels and consumer marketing at Warner Music International and VP of digital at EMI.
So, what’s next?
“I'm very excited about the future,” she says. “I think there's plenty I can still contribute and do and I'd like to be somewhere where I can be the mastermind of that.”
And so as Garvey ponders her next outstanding contribution, we reflect on her story so far...
Firstly, what are your initial reflections on winning the Outstanding Contribution honour?
“It was a huge honour to be in that room and amongst so many incredibly talented women, and to be singled out feels really special. It's brilliant. I love this industry, so to be honoured by the industry is a real, real joy.”
With this award and your impending departure from Warner, is this a time for reflection on your years in the industry?
“Yes, the beauty of this award is it really forces you to reflect on the journey. I mean, my entry into the company was particularly interesting. One of the first things I did was stand in front of a government inquiry on misogyny. That's very apt to bring up for this interview, but that was a baptism of fire. But we liaised with the government and the BPI and did a lot of work on that. We’ve worked with the government on AI challenges and looked at what we need to do to lean into a new government and make sure this industry was set up for growth. I've also done a lot of work with a team here and internally on how we kind of become a lot more strategic, a lot more data-led in terms of our decision making.”
With the likes of Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, PinkPantheress, Rachel Chinouriri and more, Warner acts have been at the heart of a period of female acts dominating the charts and the live circuit. Why do you think these acts are doing so well at this time?
“Personally, I think it's long overdue. Previously we were all terribly concerned that the representation in the charts still wasn’t female enough. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, where we have almost a dominance of female artists who are real lyricists and storytellers. It’s not throwaway pop, it’s relatable and thoughtful artistry.”
Can you share any insight as to how the Warner structure will work for artists signed in the UK?
“We have this amazing trove of talented women on our roster. I think being directly connected to Warner Records and Atlantic in the US just superpowers their ability to break America, quite frankly, because you have collective learning and a really collective purpose with both the UK and the US labels. And, you know, we're seeing that you have to have a meaningful presence in the US for the algorithms, essentially, to lean the right way for an artist to truly become a global proposition. So I'm excited. It'll be really, really powerful for anyone that's on our roster.”
In terms of female talent on the executive side, are you seeing enough coming through? Is this something that you've been involved in nurturing?
“Yes, yes, yes. I personally grew up in an industry where I never had female leadership above me and anyone to model myself against. I've always taken my role very seriously in terms of being hopefully inspirational and definitely a mentor to people coming through. But Tony [Harlow] and I have very purposefully thought about diversity, particularly gender diversity, in the UK team. We have an incredible generation of women that are coming through in numbers. It's not just identifying talent, it is also having the right parental leave in place and nurturing a culture that supports women through all their various life stages. I feel like there's excellent groundwork in place and a generation that's ready to push through.”
How would you describe your own journey through the music business?
“I've been in this industry now for over 20 years, and I have just loved it. I joined it when Napster was stealing the world's music. The parallels with today are quite ironic, it’s strange that we're on the next iteration of that [technological shift with AI]. I've always been at the intersection of creativity and commerce, and the changes that are forcing the business to innovate.”
You started out at EMI, how do you reflect on that time now?
“I joined as the chief of staff at EMI Music. I was working for Alan Levy and David Munns. It was a great introduction, because they were chairman and vice chairman of the recorded music side and they taught me the industry top to bottom. So I got the best schooling you could get. And then I moved into business development. That was the era of ringtones and going over to the West Coast of the US to do ringtone deals with Microsoft. It was a really exciting time, it was that cusp of change again, because at that point only 2% of revenue was digital. Just imagine how far we’ve come.”
And from there you took a job at Warner Music International…
“I ran the European digital business there. That was an era where we talked about 360 degree deals a lot, so it was about expanded rights. But rather than grabbing rights from artists, it was about building capabilities, buying merch companies and live companies, many of whom are still in the portfolio today throughout Europe. I’ve always been very digital and technology leaning in what I’ve been doing. But then I got the call to go and run Abbey Road…”
How exactly did that come about?
“Universal had just acquired EMI and with it Abbey Road. They had really exciting entrepreneurial plans about what you could do with a brand and a place as magical as Abbey Road. I spent seven years there reimagining this place that’s an incredible cultural icon, but working on how to take it outside just being a physical studio in north west London. So we built tech incubators and schools and retail stores, and it became a business with multiple strands, but always with creativity and music production at its core.”
It was a huge honour to be in that room and amongst so many incredibly talented women, and to be singled out feels really special
Isabel Garvey
What have been the biggest obstacles you’ve faced over the years?
“Probably the most obvious one is I had no role models through most of my career. It's really hard to model what life will be like in five or 10 years’ time when you don't have that person above you. I also think this industry can ‘organ reject’ people who aren’t creative. You have to work extra hard when you are not one of those people. You have to build trust and win the hearts and minds of the creative people, because you only get the magic when creativity and commerce come together. I hope it's something I've cracked over the last 20 years. And then, finally, I have also had moments in my career when people say things like, ‘a woman can’t do this job’. And it is still happening, even within the last year. The world has improved a huge amount, don't get me wrong, but I don't think we can underestimate how much we, as women, have to think about these things. It’s not automatic for us, there's always a slight hurdle there.”
What do you think the future of the industry looks like?
“I wish I had that crystal ball. It feels daunting, but I have no doubt that if the government puts the right legislation in place, if we're smart about how we licence and how we represent artists in this new AI world, then I think there's plenty of opportunity. I think the challenge for all of us is we can see how powerful the technology is, but we don't see what the consumer proposition is just yet. There are so many articles out there at the moment about how disruptive AI can be. But in terms of actual industry uptake, how we use it day-to-day, or how we use it facing our audiences… we’re not there yet. It's kind of like Skype. We all know Skype and video calling now, but it took 10 years for that technology to make sense. So I think it's going to be a journey. Change has just been such a constant in our industry, I have no doubt that we will be able to hold hands with all of the various stakeholders and actually find something that kind of comes through.”
And, speaking personally, what would you like to do next?
“I don’t know… I am definitely the person who is the commercial brain, and I love this beautifully creative business that we work in. I love the clash. It can be really frustrating, but it’s also really rewarding, that clash of creativity and commerce. I'd love to stay in that intersection and find a growth business, a business that has a real energy about doing something different. We're about to hit another phase of serious disruption, so being able to plot something disruptive, disrupting with the disruptors, feels really compelling. It can feel quite daunting, reading the headlines and trying to get our heads around AI in the first instance. How do we market effectively? How can we be really good champions of artists in this world and this landscape? But it brings huge opportunities and new ways of working. Who knows where the next opportunity is?”
PHOTOS: Louise Haywood-Schiefer / Panni Renner
