Sylvia Rhone is regarded as the most influential female executive in the history of the music business. Named Chairman and CEO of Epic Records in 2019, a division of Sony Entertainment, Ms. Rhone currently oversees a roster of chart-topping artists including Travis Scott, Camila Cabello, 21 Savage, Future, and others. In a career spanning more than four decades, Ms. Rhone has helmed senior positions at all three major record companies, including President of Universal Motown Records, Executive Vice President of Universal Records, and Chairman of the Universal Motown Record Group (2004-2011), Chairman/CEO of the Elektra Entertainment Group, the first woman, ever, to be named CEO of a major record label owned by a Fortune 500 company and the first African American woman in history to attain such a title (1994-2004), and CEO/President of Atlantic’s EastWest Records U.S. division (1990-1994). Recipient of nearly three dozen honors and awards, she is to be honored with the City Of Hope’s prestigious The Spirit Of Life Award this October, and will receive the Midem 2019 Hall Of Fame Award, in association with Billboard, at their 53rd annual conference. Born and raised in New York City’s Harlem, Ms. Rhone graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, bucking the Ivy League route in her music business journey to take a job as a secretary at Buddah Records. During her career she has also been credited with pioneering policies that have created a gender-balanced, racially diverse environment reflective of the culture as a whole.