A TASTE OF RAINMAKERS: STEPHANIE YU

Truth be told, Stephanie Yu never envisioned herself being lauded as a rising legal force in the music industry. In the early aughts, the New Jersey native was too busy practicing corporate law at the prestigious New York firm Covington & Burling, where she handled litigation and white-collar criminal cases. That all changed in 2005, when a former boss—who’d already moved over to the music biz—asked if she was interested in taking the reins as a litigator at Sony Music’s corporate law department. The second daughter of immigrants hit the ground running, garnering a reputation as a sharp and uncompromising legal talent; over the years, she has orchestrated buzz-heavy recording and licensing deals for such top acts as Travis Scott, DJ Khaled, 21 Savage and Future.

Since then, her career trajectory has been relentless. After a decade-long stint at Epic Records in which she was named SVP, head of business & legal affairs, the University of Chicago alum was elevated by label ruler Sylvia Rhone in 2020 to EVP. But Yu, who currently also oversees Epic’s brand marketing and sync-licensing teams, is at heart still a Jersey girl who knows her ’90s hip-hop, speaks proudly of her roots in social-justice advocacy and is quite smitten with her dog.

How did you make the unusual jump from criminal law to head of biz and legal at Epic?
When I was in law school, I was defending people on death row on their appeals. When I graduated, I went to work at Covington & Burling, and I did a lot of white-collar crime cases. I worked for this one partner, Daniel Mandil, [who later] became the general counsel of Sony Music. And after he’d been there for a little while he asked me, “Would you be interested in coming over here? I need a junior litigator.”

I’m sure you thought, “What the hell do I know about music litigation?”
[Laughs] Yeah, you rarely see people moving from corporate law to music law. I knew nothing about copyright and trademark law, so I had to pick it up fast. I worked at Sony for a few years and then got the opportunity to move over to the transactional side. When I first started, I would wake up in the middle of the night and think, “Oh, my God… I drafted that section wrong and we’re going to get sued!” Because I came from a litigation background, everything to me revolved around lawsuits. But I really enjoyed it and loved the fact that transactional work was more collaborative and less about fighting.

And then you made the move to Epic in 2011. How would you describe your position?
I would describe it as negotiating deals, helping the label evaluate legal risks and advising on overall strategy. Some days, I’m negotiating deals with artists, producers, movie studios or brands. Other days I’m helping with an emergency or coordinating with other Epic departments on an artist initiative. The nature of this job is totally different from my work in criminal and corporate law. I’m not spending my time researching and writing legal briefs arguing about why a client shouldn’t go to jail or why their sentence should be reduced. I’m spending my day figuring out deals.

One of the primary areas you oversee is brand marketing. To what do you attribute the explosion of artist branding over the last five years?
Right now, there’s the impression that it’s pretty easy for artists to record on their own and for artists to deliver music on their own. So what are we, as a record label, going to do to make sure we are providing value to the artists who are signed to us? I think that one of the major things we can do is provide guidance and help in licensing and the brand sector.

Women have been so integral behind the scenes in the music industry for decades. As a woman of color, can you speak to how much of a role model Sylvia Rhone has been for you?
Sylvia Rhone is a legend. When I first met her, I was intimidated, because she is so well put together. She has always been so incredibly nice and supportive. I really owe so much of the trajectory of my career to her. Sylvia has given me support and boosted me up even without me asking, so that’s been incredibly important to my career and to my success. And she also gives me independence to make decisions. She has obviously had this incredible career, going from being an assistant to being the chairwoman of a major label, and it’s really an amazing story. To have Sylvia as an example is a wonderful thing.

What is the most important thing you’ve learned from her?
I love the fact that she doesn’t focus on how tough it was [for her being a woman of color]. She acknowledges it but she just keeps working. Sylvia Rhone leads by example. She just keeps bringing in the hits.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?
I look at one of my other mentors, Julie Swidler, who is general counsel of Sony Music. She’s just an amazing example of where you can go, starting off as a label attorney and ultimately becoming the global general music counsel of an entire music company. I would love to do something like that, not only be close to the music, but also to be able to look at a global company and understand everything that is happening across the world. I can’t imagine all the things that Julie deals with on a daily basis, but that’s ultimately where I would like to see my career go.

Read the complete interview here.