President, 4th Floor Creative, Sony Music U.K.

Earlier this year, after a decade and a half at First Access Entertainment, Cassandra Gracey joined Sony, where she’s leading its creative department, 4th Floor Creative, as President. At FAE, Gracey was EVP of U.K. and Europe, working with the likes of Sugababes, Conor Maynard, Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora and Ellie Goulding. Her new role oversees the branding, sync, insight, creative and digital departments at the major label. When announcing the hire, Jason Iley praised her “huge personality, determination and creative vision.”

This year, she’s been filming live concerts, including Camila Cabello’s Brixton and Mexico shows, creating bespoke clothing lines from scratch, and shooting, producing and editing multiple videos in-house for artists ranging from Little Mix to Au/Ra. Also, “There have been great campaigns delivered which utilised multiple teams across the department,” says Gracey, who highlights the Paloma Faith campaign with Skoda in conjunction with RCA. 4th Floor has also built photo and recording studios.

The ambition for 4FC is to “continue to amplify our artists’ stories in whatever format works for them and their audience,” says Gracey, who notes the challenge of always having to be “on” while competing with gaming, football and Instagram Stories for the audience’s attention. However, she says the key to success in the global streaming-led world “is continuing to do what we do best—developing and supporting artists that the world wants to listen to.”

Gracey concludes: “As much as I believe in the use of tools, analytics, data, insight—I still believe we need to couple them with trusting our guts. We are here because we know what we’re doing; we just have to have faith and remember it takes a moment to break an artist. British music is always evolving and always at the forefront of what represents Britain, and I feel fortunate to be working amongst it.”