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SOCAN boss steps down with immediate effect
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 15 April 2020
The high profile boss of Canadian song rights collecting society SOCAN is standing down with immediate effect. The rights organisation says that Eric Baptiste has decided that, with his current contract soon to expire, the time has come for him to move on.
The society said in a statement: “With the end of the current CEO contract approaching, Eric thought it was time to move on and a mutual decision was reached with the board to end his tenure now. Jennifer Brown, Senior Vice President Operation & Reproduction Rights, has been appointed to the role of Interim CEO during the formal process of identifying a permanent CEO”.
Baptiste joined SOCAN a decade ago, having previously worked for the global collecting society grouping CISAC. On his watch SOCAN undertook a number of interesting acquisitions and launched some innovative data ventures, a lot of that activity focused on meeting the challenges faced by all song right societies with the rise of digital licensing.
Commenting on the sudden departure, the organisation’s President Marc Ouellette said: “We thank Eric Baptiste for his leadership over the past ten years. During this time, SOCAN has seen growth and has maintained its presence as a leader in serving music creators and publishers in Canada and around the world”.
SOCAN’s statement added that Baptiste’s sudden departure was in no way linked to the COVID-19 pandemic which is affecting a number of the key revenue streams for song right societies. “The decision is purely coincidental to the current COVID-19 crisis”, it said, “and the board of directors has full faith in SOCAN’s executive management team. The organisation continues to operate at full capacity”.
