By Isabelle Speerin
As the music industry enters the new year shaped by rapid technological change, a new wave of early-career professionals is redefining music publishing behind the scenes. Among them is NYC-based administration associate Kiki She, who supports Reservoir’s business development and digital licensing team and helps the global independent meet the demands of an increasingly digital rights economy.
She represents a rising generation of bright publishing professionals whose work sits at the heart of the industry’s evolution – collaborating with digital service providers, tracking splits, matching copyrights with precision, ensuring licences keep pace with new technologies, and protecting songwriters’ works as music consumption becomes more fragmented and algorithm‑driven.
Raised between Taiwan and China, Kiki grew up playing the violin, piano and flute. A huge K-pop fan in high school, she began paying attention not just to the music, but to how it travelled across platforms, languages, and audiences – and why some markets seemed better set up for global reach than others. “I was thinking to myself, I want Chinese or Taiwanese pop to be out there in the world too,” she says.
That early interest in how the industry worked behind the scenes informed a move to the U.S. in 2017 to study music business at New York University (NYU). The program, she says, gave her the foundation she needed to enter publishing with confidence. In her sophomore year, she interned with a music royalty accounting services firm. “It was a very informative experience,” she said. “But I learned I wanted a different perspective – from the licensing side.”
In fall 2020, she spotted a job posting for a licensing and copyright intern at independent music company Reservoir, applied and landed the role. Working closely with Reservoir’s licensing and copyright team, she helped manage the company’s catalogue and found she loved the pace and variety of the work. “As an intern, I wasn’t just supporting teams,” she recalled, “I was involved in real licensing and copyright tasks.” Her supervisor at the time, Tom Mathieson, later brought her into the digital licensing space.
Today, as an administration associate, she works with digital platforms like Meta, TikTok, and YouTube to strengthen rights-management processes. Her work has already taken her beyond New York; she travelled to Toronto to represent Reservoir at the Music Publishers Canada Tech Summit, building relationships with digital platforms and co‑publishers.
She describes Reservoir as a place where new voices and new ideas are welcomed – something she credits to the company’s leadership culture under Founder and CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi and President and COO Rell Lafargue. “It’s a company that’s really open and very creative and young,” she said, adding that she feels empowered to speak up, especially when it comes to newer platforms and changing user behaviours.
That openness matters as the industry adapts quickly to new technology, from rights management upgrades to the broader challenges and opportunities posed by AI. “Be open to change,” She says, adding that even experienced leaders can and should stay receptive to new perspectives.
When asked what she’d tell emerging professionals, her advice is practical and encouraging: use what you learned in school, stay connected to your network, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Looking back, she credits both education and curiosity with helping her build confidence early on, noting that the knowledge she gained at NYU remains practical in her day-to-day work.
Most of all, she encourages emerging professionals to speak up early and often. “Be proactive, be curious,” she says, adding that mindset matters more than ever as publishing teams adapt to new tools and technologies. “We’re open to implementing AI tools into our day-to-day workflow at Reservoir to make our teams more efficient,” she adds – a shift she believes younger professionals are helping lead through their comfort with new technology.
Launched in Toronto and now headquartered in New York City, Reservoir represents countless copyrights and master recordings with titles dating back to 1900, hundreds of #1s worldwide, and works by Joni Mitchell, John Denver, Sheryl Crow, Snoop Dogg, Miles Davis, and more. It’s a catalogue built on legacy, and now being reimagined by a new wave of publishing talent.
