This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Awards Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers
Harvey Mason Jr official becomes Recording Academy CEO
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 14 May 2021
Harvey Mason Jr has been officially named the new president and CEO of Grammy Awards organiser The Recording Academy. He has held the roles on an interim basis since January 2020, following the sudden departure of his predecessor Deborah Dugan.
“It’s been a year of unprecedented, transformational change for the Recording Academy, and I’m immensely proud to be able to continue our journey of growth with these latest updates to our awards process”, says Mason. “This is a new Academy, one that is driven to action and that has doubled down on the commitment to meeting the needs of the music community”.
“While change and progress are key drivers of our actions, one thing will always remain – the Grammy Award is the only peer-driven and peer-voted recognition in music”, he goes on. “We are honoured to work alongside the music community year-round to further refine and protect the integrity of the awards process”.
Mason Jr took over days before the 2020 Grammy Awards, after Dugan was fired just months into the job. On her way out, she made various allegations against the organisation, including that the Grammy Awards was inherently corrupt. That’s something Mason Jr has, not entirely successfully, being attempting to counteract ever since.
Following this year’s ceremony, he announced that (in most categories) the event would no longer use committees to decide the final shortlists – instead leaving it up to the voting members of the wider Academy.
