NEW YORK (December 3, 2018) – Billboard, the leading destination for charts, news, trends and innovations in music, announced today that Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding will host its 13th Annual Women in Music event on December 6 in New York City. For the first time, Billboard will present the Executives of the Year Award to four powerhouse females for their incredible leadership in the music industry: Danielle Aguirre, Executive VP/General Counsel for the National Music Publishers Association; Dina LaPolt, Founder/Owner of LaPolt Law, who serves as legal counsel to the Songwriters of North America; Jacqueline Charlesworth, of counsel, Covington & Burling; and Susan Genco, Co-President, Azoff MSG Entertainment.
Musical artists Ariana Grande (Woman of the Year), Janelle Monáe (Trailblazer Award), Cyndi Lauper (Icon Award), SZA (Rule Breaker Award), Kacey Musgraves (Innovator Award), and Hayley Kiyoko (Rising Star Award) will also be honored at the star-studded event held in conjunction with the release of Billboard’s annual Women in Music issue.
“It’s difficult to convey what a herculean task Danielle Aguirre, Dina LaPolt, Jacqueline Charlesworth, and Susan Genco accomplished by seeing through the Music Modernization Act,” says Ross Scarano, Billboard’s VP, Content. “This is a watershed piece of legislation for the recording industry, and without our Executives of the Year, it would not have made it into the law books this past October.”
One of this decade’s most prolific pop singer-songwriters, Ellie Goulding has sold 15 million albums and over 100 million singles, with 13 billion streams worldwide. She has notched six Top 10 hits on the Pop Songs chart, including radio staples “Lights,” “Burn” and “Love Me Like You Do.” “Close To Me,” out via Interscope Records is her new collaboration with Diplo featuring Swae Lee that recently debuted on the Billboard Hot 100. A UN Global Environmental Ambassador, Goulding is involved in a number of other philanthropic ventures including being a patron of The Marylebone Project and fundraising for Streets Of London.
Executives of the Year Aguirre, LaPolt, Charlesworth, and Genco were integral in creating and shepherding through the Music Modernization Act, a landmark piece of copyright legislation signed into law on October 11 that changes how artists and songwriters working in music’s digital era are compensated.
The 13th annual Women in Music event is produced by Don Mischer Productions. The show will be broadcast live on Twitter, 7pm-10pm EST on December 6. The 2018 event is sponsored by American Airlines, American Express, FIJI Water, Honda Stage, and Nielsen Music.