Describe your background and industry experience, and explain how it will help you contribute to the SOCAN Board of Directors?
As a 2025 Billboard Canada Power Player in the Publishing category, a SOCAN #1 songwriter/vocalist for Billboard U.S. Dance Radio #1 “Regard – No Love for You (ft. A-SHO)”, and a former Sony Canada signed recording artist under the alias A-SHO, my relevant experience spans across songwriting/production, label operations, M&A, artist management, music distribution, publishing administration, sync licensing, revenue operations, and more. I currently serve as Vice President of Business Development and Revenue Operations at Create Music Group, where my work focuses on helping artists and songwriters maximize and recover revenue across the global digital music ecosystem.
My career has centred on ensuring creators are properly compensated in an increasingly complex industry. I have worked directly with artists, producers, and songwriters while also operating at the infrastructure level of the music business—managing rights administration, metadata, royalty collection, and platform reporting across services such as Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, Meta, and various rights organizations. This perspective has given me a strong understanding of how value flows through the modern music economy. In my current role, I lead revenue optimization initiatives that identify and recover missing revenue caused by split-rights conflicts, incomplete registrations, and administrative inefficiencies, requiring an understanding of how PROs, publishers, DSPs, and distributors interact and how data and technology can improve transparency in royalty reporting.
As a member of the SOCAN Board of Directors, I would bring an operational and analytical perspective focused on improving collection efficiency, strengthening transparency, and ensuring SOCAN continues adapting to the rapidly evolving digital landscape. My goal is to help SOCAN remain one of the most effective rights organizations globally while ensuring Canadian songwriters and composers receive the compensation they deserve.
In your opinion, what issues will be most important to SOCAN members over the next three years?
Over the next three years, SOCAN members will face several important issues driven by technological and structural changes in the music industry.
First, the continued growth of short-form and social media platforms will remain a key topic. Platforms such as TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels have become primary discovery channels for music, but the monetization models for compositions on these platforms are still evolving. Ensuring that songwriters receive fair, transparent, and scalable compensation from these ecosystems will be critical.
Second, data accuracy and rights management will continue to be a central challenge. As songs increasingly involve many collaborators across different territories, accurate metadata and split registrations are essential to ensure royalties are collected and distributed properly. SOCAN can play a significant role in improving data standards and supporting systems that reduce royalty leakage for members.
Finally, artificial intelligence will be an increasingly important issue. As AI tools are trained on existing music and begin generating new works, the industry will need clear frameworks around training data, copyright, and compensation. SOCAN will play an important role in advocating for policies that protect the value of human songwriting while allowing innovation to develop responsibly.