Amanda Ghost has been appointed President, Epic Records, it was announced today by Rob Stringer, Chairman Columbia/Epic Label Group.
Ms. Ghost will join the company effective February 16, 2009 and be responsible for overseeing the overall management and creative direction of Epic Records.
She will be based in New York and report directly to Mr. Stringer.
“I am delighted that Amanda has chosen to bring her creative vision and flair to the Epic label. In the changing environment of the music business record labels undoubtedly need to be complete partners with the artistic community and Amanda will be the perfect executive to meet that challenge,” said Mr. Stringer.
“I’m very excited to be working with Rob Stringer and joining a label as iconic as Epic,” commented Ms. Ghost. “Epic historically has stood for pop music in as broad and exciting a sense as possible.”
“I’m not a conventional choice as an executive in the music business, but it is testament to the new mood at Sony where content is now king and the music business is being put back in the hands of creative talent such as myself. I’m here to draw on my experiences as an artist, songwriter and producer to make the new and existing artists signed to Epic as brilliant and successful as possible,” she continued.
Ms. Ghost’s most recent acclaim has come as a Grammy-nominated songwriter, working with artists such as Beyoncé, James Blunt, Jordin Sparks, Kanye West, Shakira, Jay Z and many others. She has recently been nominated alongside Beyoncé for a Golden Globe for the song ‘Once in a Lifetime’ the theme song for Cadillac Records.
Her songs and compositions have sold over 25 million records in the last three years. Her credits include James Blunt’s “You are Beautiful”; Beyoncé & Shakira’s “Beautiful Liar” and Jordin Sparks “‘Tattoo.”
As a popular artist and performer in her own right, Ms. Ghost released her major label debut album “Ghost Stories” (Warner Bros.) in 2000 and later went on to release records in the UK on her own record label, Plan A records which was distributed through Universal Records. During that time she also started a publishing label and music production company where she signed new and developing artists, most recently, Hugo Chakra, who is licensed through Jay Z’s record label Roc Nation.