MBW’s Inspiring Women series profiles female executives who have risen through the ranks of the business, highlighting their career journey – from their professional breakthrough to the senior responsibilities they now fulfill. Inspiring Women is supported by Virgin Music Group.
In the space of 10 years, she’s graduated from college, landed her first job at Prescription Songs, spent eight years at UMPG, before joining the senior team running one of the most storied record labels in the business.
During that time, Parsa has worked with acts and songwriters including Renee Rapp, Ice Spice, Julia Michaels, Gracie Abrams, Nija Charles and Jimmy Napes.
While things accelerated once she got her foot in the door, Parsa’s career story is proof that success often takes a while to lift off. As a recent graduate, hungry to work in music and with plenty of experience, it still took her close to a year to land a job after multiple rejections.
“I remember doing an interview with a publishing company four times, just for an assistant role, and I got rejected from everyone,” Parsa remembers. “I probably wasn’t interviewing that great. Eight months on from graduating from college and I couldn’t nail a job.”
Eventually, a job did come thanks to Beka Tischker, who was then President at Prescription Songs, and Parsa’s career in publishing began. Her good work started to get noticed and after around a year, Parsa was poached by David Gray at UMPG, who hired her on the spot during an initial meeting.
Parsa decided she wanted to work in music when doing an internship at Columbia Records while in her junior year at USC. That opportunity arrived after she boldly approached Shawn Holiday — who was working a dual role between the Sony label and Sony Music Publishing — at her gym.
Parsa says: “I was in my junior year in college and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. So I started asking everyone around me for an internship. I walked up to Shawn in the gym and was like, ‘Can I have an internship?’ He said, ‘Do you know what I do?’ I said, ‘You work in music, everyone here tells me you’re a big deal.’ He probably liked the fact I was so direct and said I could come in.”
During that time, Parsa, who would sit in Holiday’s office and listen in to his calls, learned the first pivotal lessons that would inform her career. “I learned that to get people in the music industry to actually listen to you or care about what you have, you have to have something that they care about,” she remembers.
“Also, Shawn always put his calls on speaker and I used to be able to listen in to the good and the bad conversations. Shawn told me, from the beginning, ‘Your relationships are everything in this industry. If you’re good to people and you have a good reputation, all the good will come with it.’
“Even if someone screws you over, it’s about seeing past that and knowing that everyone comes back around.”
“That’s informed a lot of the way I carry myself in my career. I try to be the best version of myself all the time. It’s also about not being short-sighted. Even if someone screws you over, it’s about seeing past that and knowing that everyone comes back around.”
While interning with Holiday, Parsa started picking up management clients and got a taste of publishing when signing a songwriter to a publisher. She says: “He started creating buzz because we were going to, like, thousands of sessions a day. That’s when I started meeting pretty much every head of every publishing company. I was skipping classes and my college experience was pretty non existent because I was just working the entire time.”
During her time at UMPG, where she was eventually elevated to SVP of A&R, Parsa worked closely with Gray and UMPG CEO Jody Gerson, who she calls two of her most important mentors.
As she was coming to the end of her contract, Interscope Geffen A&M chairman/CEO John Janick offered her the Capitol opportunity and she gladly took on the new challenge on the recorded side of the business. Parsa joined the company at the same time as Chairman/CEO Tom March.
Parsa is, of course, excited about Capitol’s roster as a whole but singles out developing act singer/songwriter Sienna Spiro, the collaboration between Doechii and Leon Thomas III, acts signed via the Quality Control JV, like JT and Lil Baby, Mark Ambor and Alessi Rose, in particular.
“I’m excited about where we’re moving as a company in general and the artists we’re aligning ourselves with,” she says. “It’s a bunch of rule breakers and people who do things in their own way.”
Here, we chat to Parsa about her career to date, ambitions at Capitol, why she thinks she suffered so much rejection at the beginning of her career, and more…
What have you been focusing on in your first year as co-President at Capitol?
It’s been a really great time. The company is moving in the right way. Everyone is inspired and hungry. Everyone has artists they’re so passionate about, whether they’ve been with them from day one of signing or jumping in later.
There’s an energy in the building that feels really good. A lot of the focus has been on signing great artists, developing and doing right by the artists that have been signed to the label.
I’ve been bringing through some new A&Rs and people across the company, even on the creative or digital side. There’s a couple of young female executives who I see flourishing through the company right now. We really encourage everyone, no matter where you are, if you’re a coordinator, assistant or an intern, to have a voice and speak up. I can see the people who are speaking up in the building.
Can you describe the direction of the label under the new leadership? What are your, Tom’s and the wider team’s ambitions for Capitol going forward?
The ambition is to be aligned and break new artists in the right way. We’re very much alike, Tom [March, pictured] and I, in the way we think. We want artists to break in the way they envision themselves and not force them into things that wouldn’t be natural to who they are as a human being and how they want their music to sound like.
We’re a very artist-led company and you see that across the board with the artists we’re having a lot of success with right now, like with TDE and Doechii, and Leon Thomas. These artists are breaking through their way and you can tell by the way their career is unfolding. It’s all on their terms.
That’s what we want. We don’t look if an artist has a million followers, we’re just like, do we love the music? Do we align with their vision? And do they want it like we want it? We are so hungry, we work non-stop. We’re here to support and help develop those visions but the artist has to be so sure of what they want and how they want it.
What are the big lessons that you’ve learned across your career?
Being ambitious, speaking up, standing your ground. I always admired Jody [Gerson] for that, she speaks up, whether you want to hear it or you don’t. You have to speak up and you have to have integrity at the same time.
There’s been times in my career where I feel like I’ve let other people make decisions I didn’t agree with but I was too nervous to say anything. I think it’s better to have an opinion than not. I encourage people across the company, even if you think it’s the wrong idea, a stupid opinion, or whatever, to speak up. I’ve regretted the moments I haven’t done that.
Can you pinpoint the best career-related advice that you’ve gotten? And if so, who did it come from?
It came from David and Jody. When I was signing my first act at UMPG, I was desperate to sign them and it was getting super competitive. I was a junior A&R person at the time and it was my first month on the job.
We were late as a company to this artist and every CEO or President at a different company was after this client. I remember Jody saying, ‘You’re a junior hire, you want to do this big deal, prove to me why I should trust you to sign this artist.’
I kept going into her office and David would say, ‘Go back, speak up, say you want to sign this.’ I was like, ‘No one’s listening, I don’t know how to do this’, and he just kept telling me to go back. I remember going into her office maybe three or four times, encouraged by David.
Each time she would tell me, ‘Come back when you have something that can show me how you’re going to make a difference to this artist’s career’. Signing an artist is one thing but you have to know how you’re going to make a difference to their career. You have to ask yourself, ‘Am I the right person for this person? What’s my plan to make a difference?’ I’ve carried that throughout everything I’ve done. There are so many great artists in the world but not every executive is the right fit for that artist.
Did you sign that artist?
Yeah, I ended up signing it. It was the one deal I thought I wasn’t going to sign. I literally cried over that deal! It was a songwriter and artist called Nija [Charles]
She ended up having a really successful career. She co-wrote Positions for Ariana Grande and Ring for Cardi B and Kehlani. She’s had multiple number ones across the board.
So you were the right exec in the end…
Yes. Jody definitely put me to the test on that one but it was the best thing to ever happen to me because it gave me a lot of confidence.
What would you say your approach to A&R is? How do you get the best out of the creatives that you’re working with?
In general, I’m communicating with the songwriter and producer community a lot. I’ve signed so many of them at UMPG. With artists, it’s understanding what they want out of their album, leaning on them.
When I sign an artist, I’m signing them because I love their songwriting, their craft, their vision. Sometimes I have artists who are like, ‘I want to work with this producer, they are the biggest producer in the world.’ My approach is always, let’s see if you guys would like each other on a personal level, because I think that’s how you get the best set of music.
“I’m never going to sit there and tell an artist, ‘turn that snare down’. It’s more, ‘this is how I feel when I listen to it’. I like to take a little bit more of a holistic approach.”
Another side of it is the feeling I get when I listen to the music. I’m never going to sit there and tell an artist, ‘turn that snare down’ or ‘turn that sound down’. It’s more, ‘this is how I feel when I listen to it’ or ‘this is what I’m gravitating towards’. I like to take a little bit more of a holistic approach to it all.
Having spent the majority of your career to date in publishing, what do you now enjoy about working on the records side of the business?
I realized when I was in publishing and working with artists on that side, I wanted to be closer to the rollout. I was always a really proactive publisher and when I would work with artists, I was across their entire album at some points.
They would talk to me before they would go to the label, just to be like, ‘Can we go through these songs, tell me what you love’. What I’m enjoying is that when I’m in it with my artists, I can be across the campaign and working with our creative team on the visuals, the video, the styling, how we’re going to roll it out, what’s the whole world, and it’s all driven by the music.
I like being across all of it. As a publisher, I sometimes felt like I was handing it off to other people and leaving the fate in their hands.
What’s the most exciting development happening in today’s music business?
With the nature of social media, everyone has a shot. If you’re great, consistent and you’re doing the work, you have just as good a shot as anyone. I find that very exciting.
There’s no more gatekeepers in the music industry. You don’t have to be signed to a label to break. If you do things your way and start to gather fans doing something that’s unique and singular, it’ll stick out.
What would you say IS the most challenging thing about working in today’s music business?
Because there are no gatekeepers, there’s so many artists releasing and putting out music. Figuring out how to cut through the noise is the challenging part. The way I look at artists is that we want to be unique enough so it doesn’t feel like a challenge.
Aside from having a unique artist, what are some of your strategies for cutting through that noise?
As a company, we are constantly moving at a high speed. Every department, from digital to creative, from press to brands, is communicating every single day.
“When everyone’s moving on the same mission and on the same path, you can feel it.”
When it works, it’s amazing. When everyone’s moving on the same mission and on the same path, you can feel it. Whether it’s a moment where an artist performed at a show and the fans connected, and all of a sudden there’s a spike, no matter what department you are, we all know what’s happening there and how we are maximizing that moment to make sure it feels bigger.
If you could, what would you change about the music industry and why?
I would change the stigma around signing to major labels. For some reason, sometimes there’s a negative connotation with signing to a label and a perception that they’re going to drop or shelve you.
I’d like to change that to the idea that you’re signing to a company because you believe in their ability to work with you. It’s all about the partnership and leaning into the commitment you’re making. If you find your people in whatever system, it’ll always work.
If you could go back to the beginning of your career and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?
I’m not shocked that I got rejected from probably five companies that have later come and been like, ‘Can we hire you?’
I got rejected so much trying to get a job. I did not interview great. Now, I’m interviewing so many people constantly and when a lot of younger female executives come in, they’re so great, but they tend to not be as outspoken about how great they are, or as confident.
I reflect back on how I was and I did the same thing, despite being more capable than most. There’ve been moments where I’ve had to push back and be like, come back in for a second interview. I’ve done second interviews with more young females than I have with anyone.
It’s about being really confident, knowing you’re great and showing what value you can bring, especially in the interview process. I’m so happy that I’m in a position where I can give younger females these opportunities because I feel like it sometimes takes another woman to see that.
Virgin Music Group is the global independent music division of Universal Music Group, which brings together UMG’s label and artist service businesses including Virgin and Ingrooves.
