Beth Appleton Named CEO of Jaxsta (EXCLUSIVE)
There’s a changing of the guard at Jaxsta, where Chief Marketing Officer Beth Appleton is promoted to CEO, while company founder Jacqui Louez-Schoorl steps into a steering capacity.
The development, announced Thursday (April 28) to the Australian Stock Exchange, is a best-of-both-worlds scenario for the official music credits database, explains Appleton. And it sees Jaxsta led by a seasoned major label executive with international experience.
With every business, “there comes a time of evolution. We wanted to make sure our strength and focus continues in the right areas our business goes. Jacqui and I are magnificent business partners, and friends,” Appleton exclusively tells TMN.
This change will allow Louez-Schoorl “to focus on the Jaxsta product and our community and creative relationships, which she’s phenomenal at,” she continues.
With immediate effect, Appleton “will be driving the management and the operation and the marketing of the company,” as chief executive. “Together we’ll power each other to the success of Jaxsta together.”
Appleton completes a rapid rise to the top of Jaxsta. The British-born marketing guru joined the brand in July 2021 from Warner Music Australia, where she served as General Manager and Senior Vice President Marketing Australasia, completing a 10-year stint with the global music major.
Her CV includes digital and marketing posts with EMI in the U.K. and Australia, Richard Branson’s V2 Music and Universal Music Group, and she’s been recognised in Billboard’s Women In Music profile.
Jaxsta co-founder Jacqui Louez-Schoorl.
“I am thrilled to pass the Jaxsta baton on to Beth and wish her all the success in the future,” comments Louez-Schoorl in a statement to the ASX.
“We are a dynamic duo and we work together incredibly well. I will be by her side, supporting her, and the team, in my new role and look forward to this exciting new chapter in the Jaxsta journey.”
Appleton takes the wheel at a company which boasts more than 286 data partners, digital awards relationships with the Grammys and RIAA, and a new strategic investment from Songtradr.
Jaxsta launched in open beta in 2019 with a database containing more than 100 million credits from 19 million recordings.
Today, that database expands to 230 million credits, representing every creator involved in over 41 million recordings building.
Map it together, notes Appleton, the service spreads to over 62 million pages, a figure that eclipses Wikipedia’s 55 million.
It’s a beast that is constantly feeding. On a typical day, the company ingests anywhere from 750,000 to one million credits.
Now that Jaxsta’s artist subscription product is live and maturing, delivering data products for the wider industry, including labels, publishers, PROs and CMOs, becomes a priority.
“That is data that our industry needs to enable distribution of incomes,” Appleton notes.