The “My Music Row Story” weekly column features notable members of the Nashville music industry selected by the MusicRow editorial team. These individuals serve in key roles that help advance and promote the success of our industry. This column spotlights the invaluable people that keep the wheels rolling and the music playing.

Meredith Jones Long is a Music Agent at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Based in CAA’s Nashville office, Jones Long also books the greater mountain state region for the agency’s country, classic rock and Americana rosters. She represents successful acts, including Little Big Town, Whiskey Myers, Lori McKenna, Hailey Whitters, Wyatt Flores, Southall and more.

Jones Long graduated magna cum laude from Belmont University, receiving a Bachelor of Business Administration with an emphasis on music business. She just celebrated 16 years at CAA, having started her career at the agency in 2007. Jones Long was then promoted to Agent in 2012.

Her dedication to inclusiveness is evident throughout her work, both externally and within CAA. She has led the team that created THE HUBB, a networking and professional development summit that was designed to provide diverse internship- and career-ready college students with the tools and resources needed to successfully enter the music business. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the PENCIL Foundation Board, an organization that connects the local business community and Metro Nashville Public Schools through partnerships and programs.

MusicRow: Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Hockessin, Delaware, which is in the greater Philadelphia region. I was really into music growing up, and actually played French horn and sang pretty poorly in like a children’s church choir.

I learned piano from my grandmother, who was an organist at her church in St. Michaels, Maryland, which is on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. She was very much into classical music and playing music for her grandkids. She helped motivate me and a lot of my cousins to foray into music.

What was high school like?

My high school in Delaware, AI DuPont, had an incredible marching band that was very large. We had a horrible football team because everybody wanted to be in the band. [Laughs] My band director had pushed the program to be elite, and we got to do really fun things like march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, the London New Year’s Day Parade and the Orange Bowl in Florida. We did concert band trips to Montreal and Toronto. As a teenager, getting a little freedom with your friends to run around in a foreign country was awesome.

Did you know you wanted a career in the music business then?

I fell really hard into country music in middle school, starting with Garth Brooks. In high school, I took it to a new level of exploration. I think part of me wanted to go against the grain of what everyone else thought was cool on MTV. I had a couple friends that were into country music, so we banded together and shared artists we were listening to and enjoying. Some of my first concerts were Kenny Chesney at the amphitheater in Hershey, Pennsylvania and Tim McGraw at the arena in Philly with The Chicks.

I heard about Belmont University through my dad’s cousin, who had a Lee Greenwood cut. He randomly showed up during one of our summer vacations and I was telling him that I was interested in music, but I wasn’t exactly sure if I was good at music. He was like, “You should move to Nashville and go to Belmont University.” On a whim, I came down here with my parents and toured it. I just felt the community of Nashville and that college immediately.

I remember seeing Jason Aldean in the house band at a bar on 2nd Avenue when I was here for orientation. We got his demo and my mom said, “You need to get it signed!”

Tell me about your time at Belmont.

Ashley Gorley was my publishing teacher. He had just gotten a few cuts with Carrie Underwood—this girl who won American Idol. [Laughs] I was actually in that publishing class with a bunch of executives that I run into and do business with now, which is really fun.

I really liked some of the core business classes, especially the number-driven ones like economics and accounting, as well as the marketing-driven business classes. There wasn’t a class on live music at the time, and I think the little rebel in me was like, “That’s what I want to do.” My advisor said, “You don’t want to be an agent. Agents are mean!” Then I really wanted to be an agent.

I started trying to use some relationships that I had. My internship boss [knew I wanted to be an agent] and said to me one day, “I’m in Bible study with this guy who runs an agency. His name is John Huie. I’ll introduce you.” That one introduction changed everything.

What happened?

I started as an intern filing paperwork. At the time we printed every single part of a show: the deposit slips, contracts, deal memos and offers. Everything fit into a file folde,r and we had to title all the folders with the artist name, show date, venue and city. There were cabinets all over the office.

I would get done and then have nothing to do, which was probably frustrating for the HR Director, but I would go around to all the assistants and just say, “What can I do?” I organized the CD closet, made grids of tour dates and other little projects here and there. A lot of those young assistants are now my colleagues, like Jeff Krones and Bobby Cory, and Brett Saliba [who is now at UTA]. I just started being a helpful hand. I would get them lunch if they wanted—I didn’t care.

What was next?

I did the Belmont West program, taking my last semester in Los Angeles. There I interned for a manager that wanted to hire me, but I got a call from CAA Nashville saying, “Hey, we have a receptionist position opening up. Would you like an opportunity for that job?” I was like, “Absolutely.” I loved everybody I hung out with there. They were interested in and passionate about the same things I was. I really didn’t even know what an agent did, but I wanted to learn more. So I ended up taking that job and starting the day after graduation. 17 years later, I’m still here.

How did you know you were in the right field?

Lady A was an unknown trio in town, and they were friends with one of the assistants who is now Head of Country Music at Amazon Music, Michelle Tigard Kammerer. At the old office, we had this thing called The Pit where all the assistant desks were, with all the agent offices were around it. CAA would invite young artists to play acoustically in The Pit—it was kind of a gauntlet thing. Michelle had Lady A come perform and they blew our socks off. She ended up helping them get signed at CAA and assisting with some of the early strategy. Watching the growth of their career is where I remember seeing how this all works.

What did you do as a receptionist?

It was fun. In classic Meredith form, they were like, “Here’s what you have to do.” I was like, “Great, I can do all of that in five minutes. What else can I do?” You’re kind of the frontline of the agency, so you have to be a good face. You get weird phone calls because your number is on artists’ websites, so having intuition mattered. I would also pick up random jobs around the office so that I could be more visible and be around all my colleagues. I was there for about six months before I moved onto the next position.

What was that?

It’s a position that doesn’t exist anymore, but Ticket Accounts. Before Ticketmaster and Axis had a fancy system where you can log in and see how your artist sales are progressing, my job was calling box offices and saying, “It’s me again! How many tickets has Martina McBride sold since we last spoke?” Then I would put them all into grid format so the agents could be tracking sales and understanding where marketing needed to be spent. Then I moved on from that to an assistant.

What was that like?

Scott Clayton was the first desk I had. He promoted Buster Phillips, who was going to start the college division and see if there was real business there. I became Buster’s assistant when that was created, so we trucked along together in the early days, trying to figure out the players.

I would get all the phone calls from the 19-year-olds running their college division in their student activities groups. I would have to tell them that they couldn’t afford Katy Perry, but we can talk about a young bubbling artist. It was a great education for me to learn how to deal with buyers that aren’t established yet. It was also great to learn what was happening and what college students were interested in. Some of our bosses in L.A. and New York were calling and asking, “Who are the college kids talking about and asking for?” It ended up being a really valuable resource and a big business.

From there, I got promoted to take over and do that job when Buster moved on to a different territory. Then I got promoted to Agent in 2012.

What was that transition like?

At the time, our training program sent us out to L.A. to work in the physical mail room there and learn the ropes of the whole agency, not just the music department. It took you out of your comfort zone and allowed you to network with a lot of other people with your same level of experience in all the different departments. It was brilliant and I loved it.

I came back to Nashville gung ho. I started signing clients in country music. Four years later, CAA pulled me out of the college world to give it to the next generation and keep me focused on country.

Who were the first clients you signed?

My first client was Chase Rice. He’s no longer a client, but I have deep love for that guy and the rise that we shared together. I worked with Maren Morris from the get go. I worked with Whiskey Myers after they had been a band for a few years. They were focused on Texas but I saw a vision outside of that, so they signed with me and we’ve developed a pretty strong business for those guys, internationally as well. I joined the Little Big Town team alongside Darin Murphy. I learned a lot from Darin and have more recently stepped in to run point on their career.

I’ve had a lot of fun being a part of developing artist’s teams. I’ve been on Hailey Whitters‘ team. We got her on Maren’s tour very early before she even had music out. I’ve been a part of Carter Faith‘s journey and Wyatt Flores. I was brought onto Shaboozey‘s team—he’s been a client for many years with Jenna Adler, and when he started writing songs with country themes a few years ago, I joined the team . He’s having an unbelievable ride, and he so deserves it.

What is your favorite part of your job now?

Being alongside these clients for years and watching the many iterations they’ve had, either musically or touring, those moments are absolutely the driver for me. What really sustains me, though, is the culture of this company and being here with the individuals that I get to sit around with and learn from. I’ve been working alongside a lot of them for all 17 years. I’ve been supported by them and never felt alone in a down moment. That’s a super important part of why I come in and do this job every day.

Who have been your mentors?

I’ve learned a lot from Darin and Jeff Krones. Doing business with Andrew Simon taught me a lot. Marlene Tsuchii has taught me so much.

What advice would you give someone who wants to do what you do?

I spoke to a student recently and told her two of the major qualities of a good agent are that they’re a good people person and an intelligent person. People have to like them, want be around them and trust them with their business, but agents also have to be incredibly intelligent on deal-making and have the ability to think outside the box with tour packaging or deal structures. It’s a numbers and a people job.

It’s not to be mean?

No! [Laughs] That’s not a quality! Maybe that’s from Entourage.

The “My Music Row Story” weekly column features notable members of the Nashville music industry selected by the MusicRow editorial team. These individuals serve in key roles that help advance and promote the success of our industry. This column spotlights the invaluable people that keep the wheels rolling and the music playing.

Dubbed “the dean of Nashville’s entertainment journalists,” Robert K. Oermann has become one of Music City’s leading multi-media figures—a journalist, television personality, radio broadcaster, graphic artist, lecturer, photographer, archivist and author.

Oermann writes weekly columns for MusicRow Magazine and has been published in more than 100 other national periodicals. He has penned liner notes for more than 125 albums and boxed-set productions. His nine books to date include the New York Times best-selling Songteller with Dolly Parton (2020), the award-winning Finding Her Voice with Mary A. Bufwack (2003), A Century of Country (1999) and America’s Music (1996).

Oermann has scripted and/or directed more than 50 television specials and documentaries for CMT, CBS, the BBC, TBS, TNN and others, and he appears frequently on-camera as a commentator on VH-1, A&E, CMT and the BBC.

The University of Pittsburgh graduate worked as an advertising manager for the Discount Records retailer in St. Louis, Missouri in the 1970s. After obtaining his Masters degree, Oermann moved to Nashville in 1978 to become the Head of Technical Services at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Library. In 1981-’93, he was the all-genre music reporter at The Tennessean and the founding country-music writer for USA Today. Oermann began working in television production during this same period.

His projects have included scripting the 2000 CBS TV special celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry, penning the liner notes for the Grammy-winning O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack album in 2001 and co-writing Little Miss Dynamite, the autobiography of 2002 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Brenda Lee. He was a judge on the 2003 USA Network series Nashville Star, which launched the career of Miranda Lambert. In 2004 he wrote the PBS special celebrating George Jones and was the music supervisor and script writer for the United Stations syndicated radio series Honest Country, narrated by Willie Nelson. He was a writer/director of the six-hour TBS documentary series America’s Music: The Roots of Country, narrated by Kris Kristofferson.

Among Oermann’s projects in 2005-’10 were writing and/or hosting PBS specials about Patsy Cline, Marty Robbins and John Denver. He scripted the A&E Biography specials on Billy Ray Cyrus and Carrie Underwood. He co-hosted the PBS fund-drive broadcasts of Chet Atkins: Certified Guitar Player (alongside pop superstar Michael McDonald) and Opry Memories (alongside Country Hall of Fame member Bill Anderson). Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain was published in the fall of 2008 as Oermann’s eighth book.

In 2013, he scripted and co-directed Dolly Parton: Song By Song, a six-part documentary series for the Ovation arts channel. In 2016, he was the second-unit director of the streamed-concert series Skyville Live, which featured Cyndi Lauper, Gregg Allman, Chris Stapleton, Gladys Knight, Little Big Town, Taj Mahal, Martina McBride and Delbert McClinton, among others. He co-hosted the Children of Song podcast marketed by Fox News Radio in 2017-’18. During 2019 he worked in various capacities on documentaries about The Bluebird Cafe, The Florabama nightclub, Loretta Lynn, Dallas Frazier and Kenny Rogers. Also in 2019, he was a script consultant for the 16-hour PBS documentary Country Music by famed filmmaker Ken Burns.

His acclaimed Songteller: My Life in Lyrics book with Dolly Parton was published in November 2020. He was a consultant on the 2023 PBS documentary about Minnie Pearl and served in the same capacity for the American Masters documentary about Brenda Lee in 2024.

Oermann has been active on various boards throughout his career, such as the Nashville Public Library, the Country Music Association, the Recording Academy, WPLN Radio, Leadership Music and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has been honored by various organizations over the years for excellence in media and entertainment.

MusicRow: Where did you grow up?

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh. My dad taught at the University of Pittsburgh, where I ended up going. My mother was a pediatric nurse.

But my mother’s mother, Grammy Clara Lowe, had a music store in Dubois, Pennsylvania. It was the only music store for counties and counties around, so they sold everything. They had records, sheet music, song books, instruments and anything to do with music.

They also had a jukebox chain. There were jukeboxes in all the bars in those western Pennsylvania and West Virginia towns. My mother had four brothers: Chubb, Luther, Corny and Bill. They rode around and would stock Polka, hillbilly or R&B records, depending on what bar they were in. I would ride with them sometimes. I would also clerk in the store whenever I was there in the summertime and around Christmas. She paid me in used jukebox records, which I loved. That’s how I started collecting records and how I got passionate about the music business.

What were you like as a kid?

I was very shy and very thin. My brothers and sister are all six footers, so I was the runt of the litter. I drew pictures and listened to records alone in my room a lot. I would study the labels, and notice names like Boudleaux and Felice Bryant and Billy Sherrill. I got to know these names. I was interested in all kinds of music, but in high school, I really fell for R&B.

In college, I started reading about the history of rock and roll and learned that it was a fusion of R&B and country. I read about Red Foley, Hank Williams and Kitty Wells, and realized I had records by them that I never played. So I went home from college and got them out. I played Hank Williams and I got it! I thought, “Oh, this is white people’s soul music.” I became really passionate about it at that point.

What happened after college?

I went to St. Louis and got a job at Discount Records. They had a policy of stocking at least one copy of every record in print. Nobody in the store knew anything about country or classical music, so I became their country and classical person because I knew both of those areas fairly well. I did that and I painted for 10 years. [My wife] Mary [Bufwack] was teaching women’s studies in college.

I realized if we had to live on what I was making, we would starve to death, so I went back to Syracuse University and got a Masters degree in information studies. In that program, you took half of your coursework in library and archival work and the other half in whatever you wanted. They had the Newhouse School Of Public Communications there which had everything, so I took film, video, animation, photography and recording studio technology. I didn’t realize it, but I was preparing myself.

At that time, upstate New York was a huge country music area. On the way back and forth between Colgate and Syracuse—at least an hour drive each way—all the stations were playing country. So I started knowing every single country hit that was on the radio. I was getting more and more immersed in country music.

How did you get to Nashville?

I was really digging Loretta, Dolly and Tammy, so Mary and I decided to combine our interests and write a book about women in country music. We got a list of record collectors across the country and a list of archives where there were collections of folk and country music. We went off across the nation and stopped at about every place. It was a massive educational trip.

When we stopped in Nashville, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s library was looking for someone who had a library degree specializing in non-print media and who was an encyclopedia of popular music. I said, “That would be me.” That’s how we got here in 1978.

How did you start writing in Nashville?

Most of the people that used that library were writers, so I got to know most of the writing community here at the time. I would read what they wrote and think, “I could do that.” So I started writing on the side while I was still at the library, particularly for Country Song Roundup and Country Music Magazine.

My friend John Lomax had pitched Esquire magazine for a piece on the 100 most influential people in country music, so the two of us wrote it. Within three years of writing in town, I was published in Rolling Stone and Esquire.

Lomax helped me so much—he believed in me. He had one of the first alternative newspapers in Nashville called the Nashville Gazette. He published me in that and my first feature was Brenda Lee. I started writing more and more, and then a job opened at The Tennessean.

Tell me about that.

I applied and so did 250 other people. The editor of that section of The Tennessean was a guy named Gene Wyatt. He didn’t like people with journalism degrees, he liked people that knew their subject area and who could work the beat. By then, I had been doing profiles on songwriters for publishing companies and writing bios for executives and producers, so I knew the Row pretty well.

So he hired me and Sandy Neese to be the two country music reporters at The Tennessean. That was in July. In September, USA Today started [and became The Tennessean’s parent company] and I went from never having been in a newspaper office to being in the national newspaper. That’s also when the big country music explosion happened in the ‘80s. I was just in the right place at the right time. I stayed there until ‘81.

David Ross started MusicRow Magazine in ‘81. You became a contributor shortly thereafter and have remained part of our family since then. Tell me about the early days of MusicRow.

David had started this directory with contacts for audio rental services and whatnot. When I was still the librarian at the library, he came by and asked if we would carry it in the library. After the first or second edition, he decided to put some editorial in it. Al Cooley, who worked at Combine Music, did an issue where he was the record reviewer. After the first reviews came out, Al said, “Wait a minute. I’m a song publisher. I could get in some serious hot water doing this.” He came to me and asked if I would take over the column. Then it started to grow. Kerry O’Neil did a financial column, I did record reviews and David did the news.

MusicRow grew and prospered and I just stayed with it. It’s still one of my favorite gigs. I believe in the publication. It’s an extremely valuable source, knitting the community together, which is needed more now than ever. It’s a local publication and it helps the community understand each other. I really believe in it, both as a journalist and as a sociologist.

In addition to being a prolific writer, you’ve also done a lot of work in television and other media arts. How did you diversify?

The Women in Country Music book came out in ‘94. It won awards and made a big splash. I met this guy named Bud Schaetzle through Bob Doyle and Pam Lewis. Bud was a television producer, and he had this idea to do a special on women in country music. So Mary and I did this two-hour special for CBS, and that opened the television door.

At that same time, Tipper Gore was on a big tangent about sinful lyrics poisoning our children’s minds. Channel 5 had me come on TV every Friday to talk about the concerts that were going to be in town for the weekend, and should little Susie be allowed to go to the Poison concert? [Laughs] I always said sure!

I got hired by Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase to be a weekly reviewer for them. I would come on once a week and talk about the latest records that had come out.

I hated being on camera—still do—I wanted to produce and direct. I finally got my wish and started doing that a lot. I was doing EPKs and television specials. TNN and CMT came to town, which brought opportunities because they needed content all the time. I also had a radio show on WSM.

I look back now and wonder how I did all of this at the same time. It was about being in the right place at the right time, but I worked hard. I could outwork anybody. I loved the music so much that I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to be here so badly.

Who helped mentor you in the beginning?

There was a publisher named Don Gant. I would go over there and hang out and he would teach me how things worked. Back in those days, you could pretty much go into anybody’s office, sit down and listen to music. Lomax was a huge help, particularly on the writing side. On the TV side, Lorianne Crook, Charlie Chase and Jim Owens were very encouraging.

You have authored and contributed to so many country music books. Most recently you co-authored Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. Tell me about that experience.

That book was hard work. It had a tight deadline and there were lots of clearances I had to get. But it’s a beautiful book. Dolly is a total pro. She would outwork me. We’d be doing an interview and it would get to be five o’clock. I would say, “Let’s stop here and pick up tomorrow.” She would say, “No, let’s keep going!” She will outwork anyone. That was a fun project.

Who have been some of your favorite interviews through the years?

Dolly is a great interview. She’s a great role model for everyone—we should all be that nice and good-hearted. I love Bill Anderson. Jeannie Seely is always a ball. Randy Travis and I were very close. Vince Gill is great. Kathy Mattea is an old friend. Steve Earle and I were tight. Those relationships were forged in a time when the industry wasn’t nearly what it is today. It was small and special.

What projects are you most proud of?

The Women in Country special is a beautiful project. It’s really moving. When the Recording Academy was starting its oral history program, they hired me to do a documentary called Nashville Songwriter, which I’m also very proud of. I interviewed so many early songwriters, like Marijohn Wilkin, Felice Bryant, Harlan Howard, Hank Cochran, Cindy Walker and all the greats. I made it into chapters about the creative process, how the money happens, what a publishing deal is, etc. I love that project.

Of the books, I will always be proud of the Dolly book. Before I came to Nashville, I was listening to country radio all the time. There were three new people coming along at that time: Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall and Dolly Parton. They were writing songs that were just another level up. That was an inspiration for me to get to Nashville, so I’ll always be proud of that project.

The “My Music Row Story” weekly column features notable members of the Nashville music industry selected by the MusicRow editorial team. These individuals serve in key roles that help advance and promote the success of our industry. This column spotlights the invaluable people that keep the wheels rolling and the music playing.

Annie Ortmeier is a digital-focused music executive who has pioneered every role she has held in the industry. As the newly-appointed Co-President of Triple Tigers Records, she has built new departments and teams from the ground up that meet the ever-changing needs of the music industry across sales, digital marketing, ecommerce and streaming.

She began her career as an intern with CMT and its digital branch, CMT.com, which led to a full-time job managing the online retail brands of CMT, VH1, Comedy Central and LOGO. After that, Ortmeier transitioned to an agency owned by Ticketmaster where she managed online stores for a diverse roster of artists.

She then created her own business, Yowza Ecommerce Solutions. Her company linked up with global superstars like Taylor Swift, which brought Ortmeier the opportunity to join Big Machine Records as their Director of Interactive Marketing in 2011.

From there, Ortmeier joined UMG Nashville in a new role of Director of Digital Marketing where she managed digital platform relationships. At UMG, she evolved alongside the rapidly changing consumer landscape, becoming Sr. Director of Streaming & Digital Marketing, VP and then Sr. VP of Streaming & Digital Marketing. Ortmeier was able to orchestrate and execute revolutionary marketing campaigns for country megastars such as Luke Bryan, Sam Hunt, Chris Stapleton, Lady A, Keith Urban and many more.

Now, as Co-President of Triple Tigers Records, she is helping to build a home for artists that challenges them to grow with a laser-focused hand to guide their releases. Advocating for talent with a limited roster coupled with global infrastructure support, Triple Tigers Records has cultivated an environment of supportive artistic creativity and vision.

MusicRow: Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a super small town in Nebraska called Arlington. Population: 1,100 people. We had no stoplights—only stop signs. Kindergarten through 12th grade went to one school building. We were surrounded by dairy farms.

What were your interests growing up?

Music and sports.

I have three older brothers and a younger sister. When you have older siblings, they choose the music, so I was listening to heavy metal and hair bands. I remember riding to school listening to Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, Bon Jovi and Pantera, among other rock bands.

When I was 10 or 11, I was over at a friend’s house and they were playing Garth Brooks’ No Fences album. I remember listening to the lyrics and thinking, “This makes a lot more sense. This is how we live.” I dove head first into country music after that. I started buying cassettes and CDs and pouring over the lyrics. It was the height of ’90s country.

Did you know then you wanted to work in country music?

I didn’t know there was such a thing as working in music other than to be a singer. I remember reading through the liner notes for Patty Loveless’ album When Fallen Angels Fly, and the final track on that album is a song called “Over My Shoulder.” It was way too mature for me—I didn’t really understand what it was about—but I was so enthralled with the song and the storytelling of it. I remember having this realization that underneath the song title were two people’s names, and that meant they wrote it. That opened the door to me asking what else you could do in music and knowing Nashville was the hub of it.

Music became an even more important factor in my life just as I was about to enter high school. My oldest brother was diagnosed with a very rare brain tumor that was cancerous. He was my hero, I didn’t think anything could ever happen to him, but here was this disease that brought him and our family to its knees. It was super aggressive and most of the doctors did not have much experience with it, so all in all from diagnosis to his passing was 10 months. He was only 24 years old. Through that entire painful period, I processed everything with music. I truly witnessed miracles and had so many moving experiences through that tragic time. It completely altered my outlook on life to embrace the moment and take the chance because tomorrow is not promised to anyone.

After high school, I went to a small liberal arts college in Lincoln, Nebraska called Nebraska Wesleyan University and majored in public relations with a minor in Spanish. I studied abroad in Spain when I was a junior. Because I have a large family and was always playing sports, that was the first time I had spent that much time alone, which gave me a lot of time to think. I had one year left of college and was thinking about what I wanted to do next. This music thing had been in me and on my mind for so long so I decided I had to get to Nashville.

How did you get yourself here?

I knew I needed “music experience” so I started out by interning at the local Lincoln, Nebraska radio station. We would set up remotes whenever they did them around town, which usually ended up being at Hooters down the street. [Laughs]

The last semester of my senior year, I was in our career center trying to figure out if there was another internship I had overlooked that had to do with music. I was looking through this giant binder and saw a printout of an internship opportunity at CMT.

I went above and beyond to apply for this internship to try to stand out in the crowd of people I thought would have more music experience than I did. I put together a binder that included a cover letter, my resume and a bunch of writing samples from our college newspaper. I even made my own letterhead for it.

While I waited to hear back, I graduated from college and worked as a beer cart girl on a golf course, waited tables and had a fun summer. That fall, Donna Priesmeyer called me and said, “Hey, I am from CMT. We got your application and would like to offer you the internship in our new CMT.com department.” I moved here in January of 2005 and showed up to the internship on Jan. 10. The CMT.com department had nine members at the time. Everyone was over the age of 30 and I was only 22.

What was that like?

It was so much fun but taxing. The internship was unpaid—as were all internships then—so I would work there as many hours as I could and worked two other paid jobs. I worked at Starbucks in the morning from 5:30 a.m. until 11:00 a.m., then I’d go to my internship from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and then I’d go wait tables from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. That was my schedule at least three days a week—and then I’d often pick up shifts on the weekends. It all paid off though, because then at the end of that internship period, they offered me a full-time job at CMT.com. I started that job on May 5, 2005.

Tell me about that.

I was the Coordinator of E-Commerce for CMT.com. My boss—and most of my department—ran out of New York across MTV and Viacom Properties, so I was the satellite person in Nashville for a while. I also worked on CMT.com’s online stores, creating proprietary merchandise.

They had this franchise show that was called Trick My Truck. We were making Trick My Truck merchandise and selling out of it faster than we could make it, which taught me a lot about merchandising and e-commerce. We were doing that with some of the other CMT franchises and it was working so well that they opened it up to other parts of the Viacom business, so I took on VH1 and the VH1 Classic channel. They brought me on to help launch the Comedy Central online store, which was super cool as well. I spent three years in that role, and by the time I left, we had hired the next six interns after me and became a department of 30. Something fun I got to do was be a Production Assistant on the first-ever online show that happened in Nashville called Studio 330 Sessions. We featured Little Big Town, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Old Crow Medicine Show and more at the very early stages of their careers.

It was such an interesting time to be there when so much growth was happening in the online digital space. That experience was awesome. It’s still one of the most fun places I’ve ever worked.

What was next?

There were rumors of a shakeup in leadership, so I preemptively started looking for another job. Someone that had left CMT went over to another company called Echo and I followed them there. It was a startup company that was one of the first shops in Nashville that brought everything digital under one hood. They were creating artists’ websites and online stores, and turning fan clubs into online communities. When it was purchased by Ticketmaster, I became the Manager of Merchandise & E-Commerce.

Ticketmaster was interested in purchasing Echo because they saw the potential to build all of these other product offerings onto a ticket purchase. We were directly integrated for doing some of the first-ever ticket and music bundles that happened in 2009. I was working on the e-commerce side of it and helping come up with product lines, creative ideas for new merchandise and then packaging it with music, whether it be a download or a physical piece. That only lasted one year before there was a shakeup again.

What happened?

Echo’s management called us together and told us we were being laid off. As they started downsizing, they actually offered me a job in Los Angeles. I wasn’t very confident that the job in L.A. would last much longer, so I asked if they would pay to move me back to Nashville if I got laid off within the first year. They agreed and I moved in August of 2009.

I ended up loving living in L.A. I met really great people and made friends out there that I’m still friends with to this day, but the job was awful. I was laid off again nine months later. After that ended, I was pretty much done with corporate America, so I started my own business as an e-commerce consultant.

What was that like?

Someone said to me early on, “If you always work where the money is made, you’ll always have a job.” That stuck with me. I knew if I was able to show that I can bring in money various ways, it would be difficult to get rid of me. So when I started my own business, I really set out to teach people how to create a business strictly online.

One of my first clients was Jewel, who was and is managed by Virginia Davis [Bunetta]. We had been working with her in the Ticketmaster system, and when Echo went away, they sort of pushed her off the platform. She was getting ready to launch a tour and had VIP packages that she was selling through her website. Virginia called me and asked for help figuring that out on their own, so I helped her manage her online store and got those packages up for sale.

Soon after, Virginia connected me to Big Machine who was working with a new web developer/store company managed by Jeff Yapp. He was the head of my division when I was at CMT, so I called him and we set up a meeting at his office in Santa Monica. Then I started contracting with him and helping them with Jewel.

The next thing that they wanted us to work on was Taylor Swift‘s Speak Now album. I was specifically focused on her online retail. She had a rhinestone encrusted guitar and I remember asking her team, “Why don’t you put one for sale on your website?” They weren’t sure it would sell, but I said, “Throw it up there for $10,000 and see what happens.” It sold immediately. It was fun to see her online business grow and touch it a little bit.

How did you get back to Nashville?

I moved back in 2010—which Ticketmaster paid for. [Laughs] I continued to run my own business here for a little bit. I was making it work, but the grind of running your own business and constantly looking for new business takes its toll on you. I’m glad I went through it at that point in my career because it taught me some very valuable lessons.

A friend of mine who was at Big Machine at the time, Ashley Heron, told me, “I think we need what you do on the e-commerce side at Big Machine.” The company hired me as Director of Interactive. It was digital needs for the roster, which was everything from websites to online stores, advertising, socials and more. I started with them in 2011.

What was next?

I started having a conversation with Dawn Gates at UMG about a potential new job. They weren’t exactly sure what the role would be, but they wanted to focus on building relationships in the digital world. I started with them on May 6, 2013.

There, my focus was on building partnerships in the digital world—primarily partnerships that were revenue-generating. It started with partners like Vevo, Touch Tunes and other digital accounts that had revenue tied to them. Spotify started to have a much more significant role in the industry, so I took that on, which opened up this avenue of specifically focusing on streaming.

In my time at UMG, I had four different job titles. By the time I left, I was Sr. VP of Streaming Marketing. I went from being a part of the digital team to breaking out and being a team of one and then, by the time I left, we were our own department of six people. When I started overseeing the Spotify relationship in 2013, streaming was 10 to 15 percent of the business—when I left 10 years later, it was 85 percent of the business.

That has been a theme in my career: trying something new, building it to a point where it becomes important and then moving on to tackle the next challenge.

Late last year, you joined Triple Tigers as Co-President. Tell me about that.

George Couri called to offer me this opportunity and I couldn’t believe it. It felt like the perfect fit. It’s really amazing to see what Triple Tigers has accomplished so far since starting from scratch, and I had my eye on them as a label since their inception. They were primarily built as a radio promotion staff, and they’ve been really successful in that realm—11 No. 1 records out of 16 shipped anyone? The streaming, revenue success and other things that have followed have been a benefit of all of the success at radio, but I think there’s still some work to be done with both Scotty [McCreery] and Russell [Dickerson] and establishing them as a brand.

I’ve been at Triple Tigers for eight months now. We’ve kept our intentionally small roster of three artists, but we’re looking at expanding that—and hopefully growing the team as well. It’s really exciting. For me, I’m excited to be working with Scotty, Russell and Jordan Fletcher on their goals and where they want to take their careers from here. I’m super excited by the staff at Triple Tigers as well. They are absolutely amazing and so passionate. They work so hard.

Who have been some of your mentors?

Dawn Gates at UMG was really integral in teaching me about the label system. Cindy Mabe was and is still a mentor for me. She has always been a champion of mine. Leaving her and my team at UMG was the hardest thing, but she was really great about it. I’ve known Cameo Carlson for 12 to 13 years. She was one of the first females in the business to go through the digital landscape from the beginning, so she’s always a great person to go to for advice.

I also feel like there’s this group of us that have come up through the business together and are peers, but we mentor each other in a lot of ways. I’ve got a bunch of women that I stay connected to and talk through things with.

What’s some of the best advice you’ve ever gotten?

I have never been afraid of trying something new. The only constant I’ve ever known is change. You always have to be willing to embrace change and figure it out. That has served me really well as I’ve flowed through the industry. Treat everybody with kindness and be really respectful to everyone, because you never know when your intern is going to be the next person that hires you. I’ve seen it happen. It’s the classic golden rule. That’s one thing that sets Nashville apart.