My Music Row Story: Results Global’s Jackie Campbell

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Jackie Campbell. Photo: Jeremy Cowart

Jackie Campbell is Co-Head and Chief Operating Officer of Results Global, formerly 615 Leverage + Strategy, a Nashville-based talent-centric marketing and brand management firm. She leads the company’s mission to build impactful marketing campaigns and forge enduring brand partnerships that extend the legacies of iconic talent. Results Global’s client roster includes the Dolly Parton Estate, Clint Black, Busch Light, CRS, the Grand Ole Opry, Megadeth, Scent Beauty and Trisha Yearwood.

With more than 20 years of experience connecting brands with Nashville’s evolving music and creative community, Jackie has guided partnerships and marketing initiatives for organizations including Big Loud, Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival, Big Machine Label Group, and US99 Chicago.

She serves on the Board of Directors for ACM Lifting Lives, is an ACM and CMA member, and is part of the Leadership Music Class of 2024.

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

 MusicRow: Where did you grow up?

I grew up primarily in Chicago, IL. My parents were Chicago Police Officers, so I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood in the city. My exposure to music was pretty limited to pop radio and whatever my friends were listening to, my first album purchases were Boyz II Men (Cooleyhighharmony) and Madonna (Like A Prayer). I’m not even sure I knew country music was a music genre at this point.

Right before I started high school, my parents retired from the police force and we moved to a lake house in rural northwestern Illinois, near the border of Wisconsin and Iowa. I went to high school in Stockton, Illinois, population 2,000 people. During this time, I tried my best to hate country music, but ultimately fell in love with my new friends and the rural lifestyle and got hooked by Tim McGraw’s “Where the Green Grass Grows.” From there, his album Everywhere was put on constant repeat, and it was game over… I soon became a full-fledged country music fan.

How did you get into the music business?

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

My initial full-time position at US99 was an NTR (“non-traditional revenue”) Coordinator working for Beth Sugrue, who would become a lifelong mentor and friend to me. This was a newly created position, a hybrid sales-marketing role. Our team would work closely with Programming to come up with big marketing ideas that we would get advertising partners to sponsor in order to pay for them.

We had so much fun during this era with a team that included Marci Braun, Mike Peterson, Dave Robbins, Gabe Tartaglia, Heidi Siena and Liz Geerling, among many others who’ve had a long-lasting impact on my life and career. One of our first projects with this new team was finding a way to give away 50,000 tickets to see Shania Twain for a free show at Grant Park! From there, we started working more closely with Nashville labels and artists to support album releases, headline tours and new artist development.

Another highlight was working with Ed Warm, who would become another amazing friend and mentor, to bring country music to Joe’s Bar, the heart of downtown Chicago. Could anyone imagine country music without Joe’s Bar and Ed Warm?

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

 Where did you go from there?

This radio sales & marketing part of my career lasted for nearly 10 years as our team grew and evolved, and I spent a lot of time at shows and backstage getting to know label folks and artist teams. One of the labels we worked closely with was Big Machine Records, right when Scott Borchetta launched it. We did a lot with a young Taylor Swift, and worked closely with Mandy McCormack, our midwest rep.

She thought of me when she and John Zarling were looking to grow their team and put more priority on brand partnerships at the label. They challenged me to create a role similar to what I was doing on the radio side and apply it to the label side of the business. Scott Borchetta loved the idea, and in 2011, I made the jump from radio to records as Big Machine’s new Director of Strategic Partnerships.

It’s crazy to think back to that era. In my first six months at Big Machine, we chartered an Amtrak train to make 11 stops from Los Angeles to New York City with Martina McBride, to promote the release of her album Eleven, and launched Outnumber Hunger with General Mills and Rascal Flatts. Over the next six years, this program was credited with securing over 45,000,000 meals via a partnership with Feeding America and with the ongoing support of the full Big Machine roster of artists, including The Band Perry, Florida Georgia Line, Jennifer Nettles, Reba and Thomas Rhett.

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

Of course, getting to be a small part of the team that worked closely with Taylor Swift and 13 Management to launch Red in 2012 and 1989 in 2014 were unimaginable career highlights during that time. We also coordinated a Harley-Davidson ride from Athens, Georgia to Arlington, Virginia with Brantley Gilbert to launch Just As I Am in 2014 and put on a multi-media album event at Ellis Island to Dig Your Roots with Florida Georgia Line in 2016.

Overall, my nearly six-year run at BMLG alongside Scott Borchetta, John Zarling and Mandy McCormack taught me to “start at crazy and work backward,” and was filled with so many memories, accomplishments and great humans — the absolute brightest rising stars on Music Row at the time, including Jake Basden, Stacy Blythe, Allison Jones, Dave Kelly, Kris Lamb, Annie Ortmeier, Erik Powell, Jack Purcell and Ashley Sidoti, among so many more extremely talented professionals who continue to be some of my dearest friends today.

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

Where did that lead?

As the label continued to grow and restructure, and the music industry landscape continued to evolve, John Zarling and I came up with a new business concept, more of an agency/consultancy structure that could support artists directly via management, labels for special projects and album releases, as well as brands directly. We had realized working within the label structure was limiting some business growth opportunities.

I had developed a close relationship with the Big Loud team through working with Florida Georgia Line, so I brought this idea to Seth England, Joey Moi, Craig Wiseman and Chief Zaruk. They had just recently started their label division and were growing the management side at the time. They committed to be my first client in early 2017, which gave me the courage to make the jump from Big Machine to the world of consulting and entrepreneurship via what would become 615 Leverage + Strategy, a marketing agency. Continuing to work on FGL as they were selling out stadiums and then getting to work on the rising careers of Morgan Wallen, HARDY and Ernest on both the management and label side of things was really special in those early days.

In 2019, John Zarling and I officially joined forces in the venture. We announced our partnership on December 2, 2019, exactly one day before I gave birth to my child, and three months before the COVID pandemic started. What timing! Our small but mighty team worked as a white-label extension for a roster of labels, artist management and brands on marketing strategy, partnerships and special projects. In addition to working with Big Loud during these years, one of our first clients was Dolly Parton and CTK Enterprises/Danny Nozell.

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

In 2025, we relaunched as Results Global, Dolly Parton’s official marketing agency of record. With Danny Nozell’s support, and due to the continued growth of Dolly’s business, we’ve been able to build out a full service marketing team offering social media management, email marketing, websites, paid media and PR to the clients we represent. This has also given us the resources to continue working with iconic talent and brands including Clint Black, Busch Light, CRS, Megadeth, Trisha Yearwood, and more.

What has been the best advice you’ve been given throughout your career?

Be a kind human. Because why be any other kind?

Also, credited to the one and only Dolly Parton: Be a “professionalist,” not a perfectionist. We should strive to do our best at all times, but recognize that flaws and mistakes are an essential part of both life and the creative process. Dolly said, “Everybody likes to do their best at all times. We don’t like to mess up. I don’t like to make mistakes. But like I said if you make a mistake, it’s best that you just pick it up and turn it into something positive.”

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

Who have been some of your mentors?

I am so immensely grateful for the country music community, and the incredible people who’ve impacted my career. I’ve mentioned many of them already, but a few that deserve a little extra love:

John Zarling. From boss to business partner and always a true friend first, John has taught me so much about the country music industry and passion for the genre, and he has opened so many doors for me that I didn’t even know existed. “Mentor” isn’t really the right word, but in so many ways we’ve mentored each other on different sides of the business over the past 15+ years.

Ed Warm. Since my early days at US99, Ed has been a constant friend and supporter of every step of my career. When I first started my entrepreneurial journey, he encouraged me to run for the ACM and ACM Lifting Lives boards. While I certainly dealt with imposter syndrome in every meeting, my time on these boards has been such a great way to get involved in the industry and develop deep relationships with other executives I may never have crossed paths with otherwise.

Photo: Courtesy of Campbell

Beth Sugrue. As my first real boss in the professional world, the impact Beth had on me as an employee and future leader is immeasurable. While she certainly helped me excel in my role under her leadership, she taught me some important life lessons early on, before I even realized they were life lessons: (1) You can be great at work and also be present for your family. (2) If someone on your team does something awesome, say it out loud and give them the credit. (3) If something goes wrong, own it as the leader — don’t throw your team under the bus, fix it together.

Lisa Purcell. Lisa is one of the smartest, kindest and most well-spoken industry executives in Nashville, and she has shown up in my life unexpectedly during critical points in my career, just to drop the most perfect nuggets of business, career and life advice whenever I need it most.

What are you most proud of in your career?

I’m most proud of the team we’ve built at Results Global. Especially coming out the past 36 days after Dolly’s passing. It’s just a team of the absolute best, most talented music industry professionals, but more importantly kind, generous humans that care about each other. That is such a special part of where I am in my career right now.

Lauryn Sink
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