The posting
Great music depends on great matching. As Executive Director, Matching Services, you’ll lead the strategy and operations behind one of the most critical connections in BMI’s business: accurately matching music usage to the works and rights holders it represents. You’ll oversee a broad Matching Services function supporting BMI’s core business as well as new and emerging client opportunities. This role brings together operational leadership, data quality, technology, analytics and people leadership. You’ll drive improvements in match rates, efficiency, data integrity and royalty outcomes; advance the use of automation and machine-learning-enabled workflows; and partner across Administration, Technology, Quality Assurance and client-facing teams to strengthen BMI’s end-to-end matching capabilities. You’ll also help shape how Matching Services evolves—balancing business value, client commitments, risk, capacity and cost while building a scalable, data-driven operation positioned to support both current needs and future growth. Position Summary The Executive Director, Matching Services leads the strategy, operations, and continuous improvement of BMI’s matching services function to ensure the accurate identification and matching of musical works and usage data for all BMI clients. This role drives improvements in match rates, operational efficiency, data integrity, and royalty outcomes through automation, analytics, process improvement, and cross-functional collaboration. The Executive Director also builds strong partnerships internally and externally to advance BMI’s overall matching capabilities and help capture new service opportunities. Functions of the Job
Define and execute the strategy, operating model, goals, KPIs, and service expectations for Matching Services across BMI and external client work. Prioritize work using business value, distribution impact, client commitments, strategic importance, operational risk, data readiness, deadlines, and cost-to-serve. Lead automated and manual matching of all music usage, including exception management and unresolved-performance reduction. Monitor productivity, accuracy, service levels, cycle time, cost per match, operational risk, and source-level trends, taking corrective action and presenting recommendations to leadership. Partner with BMI’s Administration, Technology, and Quality Assurance teams to address upstream data-quality, metadata, registration, identifier, source-file, and timing issues that reduce match effectiveness. Advance machine learning, semantic matching, confidence scoring, candidate ranking, automation, and human-review controls while preserving precision, auditability, and feedback loops. Optimize BMI’s evolving mix of human and technological resources by aligning work complexity, value, time-sensitivity, capacity, and cost with the appropriate delivery model. Support new client implementations by defining data prerequisites, matching requirements, service assumptions, exception processes, reporting, and operational readiness. Lead and develop managers, analysts, operational teams, and extended resources through workforce planning, coaching, performance management, training, succession planning, documentation, and continuous improvement. Serve as the senior Matching Services subject matter expert, communicating priorities, tradeoffs, risks, investment needs, and results across executive, business, technical, and client-facing stakeholders. Contribute to new business pursuits by offering subject matter expertise, demonstrations, and proof-of-concept work in partnership with other BMI teams. Oversee claiming, rights identification, usage matching, invoicing, and reconciliation against consumption files to ensure accurate attribution, monetization, revenue collection, and distribution.
Supervisory Responsibilities
Directly and indirectly manages managers, analysts, operational staff, and extended labor resources supporting Matching Services. Responsible for hiring, coaching, performance management, development planning, succession planning, workforce planning, and training strategy. Accountable for building the leadership, analytical, technical, and operational capabilities required for a more automated, data-driven, and globally scalable matching function.
Position Qualification Requirements Education
Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Data Analytics, Music Business, Operations Management, or related field required. Master’s degree preferred.
Experience
10+ years of progressively responsible experience in operations, administration, royalty processing, rights management, data management, matching/identification, including significant leadership experience. Significant experience leading complex operational teams, process transformation, data-quality improvement, and technology-enabled workflow optimization. Experience managing prioritization across multiple business lines, client commitments, service levels, and resource constraints. Experience working with large-scale data environments, matching systems, machine-learning-enabled workflows, or advanced operational analytics preferred. Experience supporting music rights administration, royalty distributions, Audio usage, Audio Visual usage, global administration, or external client-service models preferred.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Strong strategic planning, operational leadership, and portfolio prioritization skills. Demonstrated ability to make nuanced value judgments that consider revenue impact, strategic importance, risk, client commitments, and resource cost. Deep understanding of data quality management, copyright/repertoire dependencies, operational controls, and usage-to-work matching concepts. Strong understanding of automation, machine learning, confidence-based decisioning, human-in-the-loop review models, and scalable process design. Advanced analytical and problem-solving abilities, including the ability to connect operational outcomes to cost, ROI, quality, and business value. Ability to influence and collaborate across multiple departments, leadership levels, technical teams, operational groups, and client-facing stakeholders. Strong communication and executive presentation skills, including the ability to explain tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations clearly. Knowledge of music rights administration, performance processing, royalty distributions, metadata management, Audio usage, Audio Visual usage, or global administration preferred. Experience with business intelligence tools, reporting platforms, operational analytics, and process-performance measurement preferred.
What Success Looks Like
You establish a clear strategy and operating model for Matching Services, with meaningful goals, KPIs and service expectations that connect day-to-day work to business outcomes. You improve match rates, data integrity, service levels and operational efficiency while maintaining the precision, controls and auditability required for royalty-related work. You use data, analytics and sound judgment to prioritize work based on business value, distribution impact, client commitments, risk, readiness, deadlines and cost. You identify where automation, machine learning and human review can work together to create a more scalable and effective matching operation. You build strong partnerships across Administration, Technology, Quality Assurance and client-facing teams to address upstream issues that affect matching outcomes. You develop strong leaders and teams, strengthening the analytical, technical and operational capabilities needed for a more automated, data-driven and globally scalable function. You communicate complex tradeoffs, risks, investment needs and recommendations clearly to executive, technical, operational and client-facing stakeholders. You help position Matching Services to support new clients, emerging business opportunities and continued growth without losing focus on BMI’s core distribution responsibilities.
Why Join Us? Matching is where data becomes value. At BMI, accurately connecting music usage to the right works and rights holders is essential to royalty distribution and to the service we provide songwriters, composers, publishers and clients. As Executive Director, Matching Services, you’ll have the opportunity to shape a function that sits at the intersection of music rights, data, technology and operations. You’ll lead meaningful transformation—strengthening today’s matching performance while helping build a more automated, analytical and scalable model for the future. Your work will influence royalty outcomes, operational effectiveness, client service and BMI’s ability to pursue new opportunities. If you’re energized by complex operational challenges, developing high-performing teams, using technology and data to improve outcomes, and building solutions that support the people and businesses behind music, we’d love to meet you!
