Meet Morgan, global Head of Music Publishing Partnerships and Strategy at Meta.
How did you end up working in music?
The short answer is ‘luck’! The longer answer is that I’ve had a reasonably varied professional career that started with stints as both a lawyer and a strategy consultant, before moving into the music industry after a chance call from a recruiter to ask if I would consider applying for the first full time strategy role at PRS for Music. As someone who has always been around music, it was an easy decision but not one I’d ever thought about until that call around 11 years ago.
Tell us about the role that music plays in your life outside work
Music, particularly singing, is a huge part of my life and has been since a young age. I was a cathedral chorister as a boy back in my home city of Christchurch, New Zealand.
Although I didn’t particularly enjoy it at the time (I was more interested in sport!), the music and the musical education left an impression. I came back to singing on my own terms at high school and then at University as a choral scholar, first in New Zealand and then at Clare College, Cambridge here in the UK.
I also have music to thank for meeting my wife and on occasion we perform in concerts together when we can squeeze it in around work and family life.
I also try to give something back to music and I serve as a trustee for a fantastic professional ensemble called “The Marian Consort”.
We understand you’re no stranger to The Ivors Academy?
That’s right. Before my current career at Meta I had the pleasure of working as an external advisor for The Ivors Academy on a pro bono basis. I was happy to help the work that the then CEO Graham Davies started, to revitalise songwriter representation through the reincarnation of BASCA as The Ivors Academy. It’s been great to continue to partner with The Ivors Academy at Meta.
Tell us about the work that you and your team at Meta do?
Meta’s music journey began in 2016, when we first established partnerships with the music industry. We now license music across a number of surfaces including Facebook and Instagram to support Meta’s mission of building the future of human connection.
Last year as part of this evolution, we brought together music publishing partnerships into a dedicated global team and I have the pleasure of leading many talented publishing partnerships professionals here in the UK in addition to the US, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Our investment in building a global team with local expertise is a recognition of the unique and important role publishing partners, songwriters and their rights play in what we do here at Meta.
In terms of the work it’s the cliché of: “no day is ever the same”, but broadly our team does three things: help build connection between Meta and the music publishing industry; help guide our ongoing investment in infrastructure for reporting and data exchange; and help songwriters build community and following on our technologies.
What is one of the misconceptions about music publishing at Meta?
That we don’t face many of the same challenges that other rightsholders do.
For example, we work very hard to navigate the fact that Publishing rights and ownership data is complex and imperfect. As Meta agrees licences and exchanges data with hundreds of publishers and collecting societies around the world we have to solve this at a large scale.
We have invested significantly in rights management, data and reporting to ensure that our partners are able to distribute licensing royalties back to songwriters as accurately as possible.
How is Meta supporting songwriters?
We believe there is no better place on earth for songwriters to build community and following. Nearly half the world’s population now taps into Meta technologies every month and we increasingly see the songwriting community benefit from our technologies, using features such as Reels and the music sticker, to connect with fans in new and exciting ways.
Our team hosts a number of events around the globe to help educate artists and songwriters on how to make the most impact on our technologies.
What have you got coming up in terms of events?
Glad you asked! We are hosting an in-person event at the Meta office in London for Ivors Academy members on the 28th of November. The event promises to be a great opportunity to connect and learn about how you can maximise your presence and following on Facebook and Instagram, as well as find out about music at Meta more generally.
