Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers

Universal hires new people person

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 4 September 2020

Universal Music Group has appointed Eric Hutcherson as its new worldwide Chief People And Inclusion Officer. He joins from the National Basketball Association, where he had a similar role but with boring old Human Resources as a job title.

The appointment comes after Universal made a commitment to “accelerate our efforts in areas such as inclusion and social justice” earlier this year, which came in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. Overseeing that will be part of Hutcherson’s remit, with him specifically tasked with accelerating both “diversity and inclusion across all levels and territories” and “the company’s social justice initiatives”

Other items on his job description are to “align UMG’s talent functions; globally amplify the company’s entrepreneurial-based culture; attract, retain and develop talent; and to build on the company’s successful track record of driving innovation by recruiting employees who bring new ideas, perspectives and skillsets”. Fun stuff! And he’ll get to say cool things like, “talent functions: aligned!”

What does Universal big cheese Lucian Grainge have to say about all this though? He says this: “Our strength as a company comes from our people and our culture – combining the quality, passion and dedication of our people with our entrepreneurial drive. And that translates into the success of our artists and songwriters”.

“But”, he goes on, “this new position is a reflection of the fact that, in music, you can’t rest on your past success. You need to improve and grow, and you need to continually become more diverse and inclusive. Eric understands that, and over his career he has built a track record to prove it. I’m THRILLED to welcome Eric to UMG and looking forward to working with him as we drive our company to new levels of success”.

Hutcherson adds: “I’m THRILLED to join UMG. Music is special and uniquely universal; it drives culture in a way that nothing else quite does. Lucian has created a world-class organisation that empowers employees to think for themselves, to be creative and break new ground, to take calculated risks, and to value competition and entrepreneurialism. It’s a culture that fundamentally understands that success requires true diversity and real inclusion and continuous improvement”.

As well as being a top HR/people guy, Hutcherson is also a motivational speaker and created a career development programme called ‘Say Yes To Success’.