CMRRA is pleased to report on the recent promotion of three seasoned CMRRA staff members to exciting new roles in the company. Joy Galiatsos, Andrew Arnold, and Jennifer Bird have all been appointed to new roles that will help bolster CMRRA’s presence and lay the groundwork for exciting new projects to come.
Joy Galiatsos will be shifting her focus almost exclusively to the licensing trust as CMRRA’s new supervisor of claims processing and distribution.
Starting out as a mechanical licensing administrator in 1997, Joy was promoted to supervisor for major label licensing and royalties in 2004. From 2006-2010, she helped create CMRRA’s new lyrics department.
“I learned a lot working on the Gracenotes project, building new systems, and supervising a new team of twenty people.” she said. “It was an exciting time.”
For the last seven years, Joy oversaw CMRRA’s online licensing, tariff licensing and pending teams.
Her new role gives her greater bandwidth to dedicate to claims processing while opening doors to expand the claims process to other lines of business.
“I’m looking forward to spending more time on the claims process and working with our clients to enhance and expand the functionality of the claims website,” she said.
Joy’s insight to future development on this front will be invaluable as she has developed a thorough knowledge and understanding of the claims process.
Andrew Arnold’s role has expanded to oversee CMRRA’s online processing team in addition to his current responsibilities as CMRRA’s quality assurance and training lead.
Andrew began his career at CMRRA in 1997 as support in the royalties department following five years working at CAPAC/SOCAN processing television distribution.
He was hired full-time in 1998 and commenced working with the Royalties team, eventually heading up the EMI/Warner group in 2004. Two years later, Andrew was promoted to supervisor of the major label licensing and royalties department and then in 2007, the supervisor of training.
“At that time, we were hiring a lot of new staff and it was important to have one designated person ensuring everyone was following the same procedures and policies,” he explained.
Andrew’s role broadened last year to include quality assurance of CMRRA’s repertoire data and to work more directly with the online team and will now be overseeing the team of ten.
“I’m eager to complete the final phases of development for our new IT system and test new functionality,” he said. “I’m also looking forward to standardizing and updating procedures and moving these over to the new database.”
Andrew is recognised for his high standards and commitment and CMRRA is confident in his abilities to lead the online team into the future.
After taking on additional training and responsibilities to gain a broader insight into private copying collections, Jennifer Bird has been promoted to supervisor of tariff distribution.
Jennifer began her CMRRA career in 1996 as a part-timer in the royalties department. She was eventually hired full-time before leaving CMRRA in late 2001 to move overseas. Jennifer returned to CMRRA’s tariff department in 2005 and was promoted to tariff coordinator in 2010.
In her new supervisory role, Jennifer will manage a team of four and will coordinate file processing for Private Copying and Broadcast Mechanical distributions, ensuring publishers are paid accurately and quickly.
She will also handle Private Copying Manual Override claims, oversee broadcast mechanical distributions and perform system tests for business modules in development.
“I look forward to my continued involvement testing new applications in the Licensing and Distribution System,” she said. “I am also happy to play a part in streamlining our internal processes to maximize services and earnings for our publishers.”
Jennifer recently completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology from York University and is looking forward to helping her team grow in experience and knowledge.
“I am proud to be a part of a company that helps financially compensate songwriters for their work,” she revealed. “I look forward to continuing to provide exceptional service.”
Joy, Andrew, and Jennifer have all been with CMRRA for twenty years and share deep knowledge and experience across all licensing activities. Please join us in welcoming them into their new roles.
