Elizabeth Matthews
Chief Executive Officer

Elizabeth Matthews is Chief Executive Officer of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP), a membership association of more than 680,000 US composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP licenses the public performance of its members' music, collects license fees, tracks performances and distributes to its members royalties based on their performances. Under her leadership, ASCAP has achieved record-breaking financial results, topping $1 billion in revenue for two consecutive years and driving record-high distributions of royalties to ASCAP songwriters, composers and music publishers.

Beth has been instrumental in leading ASCAP’s advocacy efforts to modernize music licensing, including reform of its Consent Decree. She has spearheaded a transformative six-year strategic plan to meet the future needs of ASCAP’s members and licensing partners, and has closed major deals with key licensees, including digital media companies, cable and TV networks, satellite radio and a recent 5-year deal with the radio industry which secured higher rates for performances of the more than 10.5 million musical works in the ASCAP repertory. Under Beth’s leadership, ASCAP has launched pioneering transparency initiatives and technology innovations, and has annually processed more than one trillion performances. Operating on a not-for-profit basis, ASCAP is among the most efficient performing rights organizations, delivering 88 cents on every dollar collected back to its members as royalties.

For the past two consecutive years, she has earned a spot on Billboard’s Power 100 list and has been named as one of Billboard’s Most Powerful Executives in its Women in Music issue. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) as well as on the Board of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Beth joined ASCAP in 2013 as Executive Vice President and General Counsel, overseeing the ASCAP Business & Legal Affairs department. In that role, she oversaw business affairs, litigation, strategic alliances, and legislative and copyright policy matters. Previously, she worked at Viacom Media Networks (formerly MTV Networks), where she held the position of Executive Vice President & Deputy General Counsel. She managed and oversaw the VMN Business and Legal Affairs teams covering Advertising, Content Distribution and Marketing, New Business Development, Global Digital and New Media and the VMN Mergers and Acquisitions Pipeline, Research and various Ancillary Businesses. Beth was also responsible for drafting, structuring, reviewing and negotiation of strategic and complex commercial transactions across Viacom Media Networks’ programming services, including MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, CMT, Spike and Nickelodeon, among others. Prior to Viacom Media Networks, Matthews worked in the Intellectual Property and Corporate Groups for Chadbourne & Parke and the Business Technology Group for Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Beth received her B.A. from Purdue University and her J.D. from Emory School of Law.