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Jo Twist formally joins BPI as new CEO
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 17 July 2023
The new boss of UK record industry trade group BPI, whose appointment was announced in February, formally starts in the CEO role today.
Jo Twist joins from games and interactive entertainment trade organisation UKIE and replaces Geoff Taylor, who stood down as CEO of the BPI at the end of last year. Since Taylor’s departure, the trade group’s Chief Strategy Officer Sophie Jones has been filling in as interim CEO.
As she takes on her new job, Twist said this morning: “I can’t wait to finally take up the role and meet all the team, the BPI’s extensive membership and its industry partners, stakeholders and media”.
“There are so many exciting opportunities that lie ahead for British music and for the wider creative industries”, she added, “as well as complex and profound challenges, of course”.
“I am looking forward to leading the strong team at the BPI and working closely with our members to understand how we can best navigate these in the most effective way possible to support the continued growth and success of British recorded music by creating an environment at home and around the world in which it can thrive, and its potential and that of its talented artists can be fully realised”.
“On a more personal note”, she went on, “I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Sophie Jones for the brilliant job she has done as interim CEO, and all the team, which will no doubt help me come into the BPI and hit the ground running”.
As well as supporting the UK record industry – and running the BRIT Awards and owning half of the Official Charts Company – the BPI also plays a key lobbying role, of course. And a top lobbying priority at the moment is AI, and all the copyright and other legal challenges that have been posed by generative AI tools becoming ever more sophisticated.
Although within the music industry the economics of streaming debate also continues, with the ongoing UK government-led work that seeks to address some of the issues raised by the 2021 Parliamentary inquiry into the digital music business. And that work is now set to move onto the trickiest of the topics raised by the inquiry, which is how streaming monies are shared out between stakeholders in the music community each month.
With big differences of opinion in that domain between the music-makers and the labels – and especially the major labels – the next phase of the economics of streaming conversation is going to be very interesting to follow.
