Client Service at the Heart of ole Admin Expansion and Technological Innovation

ole's administration department, headed up by its Senior Director, Jennifer Beavis, has seen remarkable growth since the company's founding a little over five years ago. It's an expansion marked by a constant reassessment of client service, which has seen the company embrace and even customize applicable technologies in search of greater efficiency, establish a U.S. admin presence in Nashville and assemble a team of knowledgeable and experienced music professionals from the world of TV and film administration, publishing and licensing.

Beavis arrived at ole in December 2004 following stints with music publishers BMG, EMI and Nettwerk, where she held the position of Director of Publishing and Licensing Administration. She had also been Director of Copyright with the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA). Michelle Aguiar who is currently on maternity leave, joined the company on a part-time basis shortly afterwards. The administration department was lean and mean at that point... but not for long. Stephen FitzGerald, the current Senior Manager, Administration, who had worked with Beavis at the CMRRA, joined ole from Sony Music in the fall of 2005. By 2006, as the company rapidly expanded in the area of TV and film administration, Aguiar had become a full-time employee and the company had begun to hire SOCAN employees on a part-time basis to keep up with the growth in the TV and Film administration business, which had amongst other key Canadian producers, got off the ground with ole's administration deal with Nelvana in the summer of 2005.

The last SOCAN seconded employee was Etienne Villeneuve, who had held positions there as an Information Officer and an Account Executive. By the early months of 2008, he had joined Beavis, FitzGerald and Aguiar full-time as Account Manager, TV & Film. Angela Fex, current Senior Account Manager, Administration, held senior positions at both CMRRA and CSI (CMRRA/SODRAC Inc.) before joining ole on a full-time basis in October 2009.

Both Villeneuve and Fex brought the added benefit of being bilingual. "The bigger we get the more that being a bilingual company will be important, especially when we're dealing more and more with retransmission monies (a royalty for the terrestrial transmission of audio-visual productions) coming in from foreign territories like France," says Etienne Villeneuve, an alumnus of Boston's Berklee College of Music, who at ole is responsible for a number of clients, ensuring that their royalties are being properly collected, as well as day-to-day account maintenance activities.

Michelle Aguiar who began her maternity leave in - February 2010 and has been working with Michael Greaves, former Music Royalty Administrator at Cookie Jar Entertainment, with which ole had struck a music publishing co-ownership and worldwide administration deal that summer since December 2009 . Michael will remain with the company as Account Manager, Film and Television even when Aguilar returns.

ole established a U.S. administration presence in Music City U.S.A. in February of this year with the addition of Kele Currier, ole's Director of Administration. Kele works out of the Nashville office and joined the company following stints as EVP of Admin for Big Loud Bucks, as well as Audit Department Manager at Integrated Copyright Group; Assistant Copyright Manager with Opryland Music; Copyright Administrator at Maypop Music and Broadcast Administrator at SESAC.

Clients and songwriters alike have praised ole for the technological innovations they have brought to the process. Beavis had been introduced to the Music Maestro royalties software, developed by Counterpoint, back in her days with Nettwerk between 2000 and 2004. When she joined ole, purchasing that software program became one of her first priorities. As ole's TV and film business started to grow, she became aware that Music Maestro had been developed for songs and wasn't able to handle the kind of detail that their TV and film clients needed.

"I went on Counterpoint's website and saw that they actually had a very rudimentary system for TV producers," explains Beavis. "I knew they already had software called Record Maestro, which they sell off the shelf to record companies. I saw some things that the Record Maestro could do to answer our problems for the production module. I talked to Counterpoint and said, here's what I see in this other software program that I would like to see in this one because my clients need by-episode detail for each series. It actually developed very quickly from there. Counterpoint was able to see what I meant and they rolled it out fairly quickly. From what I understand, when a major television broadcaster came on board, they loved that production module. It was exactly what they wanted and they bought it."

Shortly afterwards, Beavis and ole Controller Denis Dinsmore put their heads together and worked with a third party to develop what they called the Finance Gateway software which utilized the existing Music Maestro program, which reports to clients semi-annually, so that it opened and closed the royalty system monthly. Once again, she went to Counterpoint and they tailored the system. Adds Beavis: "By September of 2008, we pretty much ended any manual monthly calculation so it all goes out of Maestro directly through the Gateway to the finance departments' QuickBooks." Most recently, Stephen Fitzgerald, Beavis and Maestro worked on a further Maestro program that would allow income variance reports to be created comparing the most recent income received from the collectives with prior distributions. This was previously done manually by the Admin department. This innovation speeds up the process which ensures cash completeness for our client.

"Every day there's a new way to collect income; we're always looking for ways to maximize the amount that we collect through new technologies," states Stephen FitzGerald, who is responsible for ensuring that ole clients receive all their royalties in a timely manner. "If you just look at all the new types of income sources there are now in the digital world and think about what's needed to collect them all, you really have to stay on top of things."

"More than anything, my experience at ole is causing me to be much more professional and thorough and more direct in how I approach and get things done," says Michael Greaves, whose background knowledge of the children's television production business gained through his time at Cookie Jar Entertainment, is a crucial part of ole's growth in this area and is a real asset in customer service for ole's film and television clients. "I just started in December and that's one of the most noticeable things. They are very professional in getting in quick and getting things done in an industry where it usually takes a while to move things ahead. They seem to have found a system."

In February of this year, ole established a U.S. admin presence in Nashville, overseen by Kele Currier. "Hiring Kele dealt with two things," says Beavis. "It gives us the needed American presence and also allows me to delegate more efficiently now that we have more and more writers and catalogue songs on our roster – in a trickle down way – to Stephen who then passes some of his work on to Angela or Kele, so it frees some of my time up from dealing with day to day transactional items as well of my involvement in the Acquisitions department and higher level administration issues.

Currier says that she's been trying to ascertain, through her early days at the company, what makes ole unique to the Music Row area. "The biggest thing that has come to mind is the fact that we can offer a direct relationship with our L.A. office and offer opportunities to pitch songs to film and television and even to other genres, such as the pop world, that's available there. We're looking for ways to further monetize songs of Nashville and the surrounding community. That's something that's missing. People need extra help in getting those songs out the door, extra help in getting songs in film and TV. There's such a gap. I think ole can fill that."

"There's an excitement in being part of team that's working together to build something that goes against the current," enthuses Angela Fex, whose focus is on ole's song catalog and writers, including song registrations, royalties, variances and sub-publishing relationships. "I like the learning aspect and being a part of something that is growing."

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