Elizabeth Matthews is Chief Executive Officer of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP), a membership association of more than 525,000 US composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers of every kind of music.
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. She was instrumental in leading ASCAP’s advocacy efforts to modernize music licensing, including reform of its Consent Decree, spearheading a transformative six-year strategic plan to meet the future needs of ASCAP’s members and licensing partners, and closing major deals with licensees.
Previously, Beth 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.