Daryl Friedman to Leave Recording Academy for CEDIA CEO Post

Jem Aswad
·2 min read

Daryl P. Friedman, the Recording Academy’s long-running chief advocacy & public policy officer, will leave his post later this year to become the global president and CEO of CEDIA, the trade association for the home technology industry. Friedman, who first joined the Recording Academy in 1997, will assume his new post on November 29; the move was first reported by Billboard.

Recording Academy chairman & CEO Harvey Mason jr. said in a statement to Variety: “Daryl Friedman has done amazing work on behalf of the Academy and music creators for the last 24 years. He fought tirelessly to champion creators’ rights and was instrumental in our advocacy and policy work in Washington D.C. We are proud of the work we’ve done together during his more than two decade tenure. We know he will do incredible work in his new role and we wish him all our very best.”

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During his tenure, Friedman founded the Academy’s Washington, D.C. office and launched Grammys on the Hill, along with multiple other programs intended to advance and promote music creators and the industry on Capitol Hill.

“We’ve found someone that I am confident will be the step-change in leadership that CEDIA needs and deserves,” said CEDIA board member Jamie Briesemeister. “Daryl has decades of experience in trade association leadership and member advocacy. He exudes a humble nature that draws conversation and consensus, and he deeply values technical expertise and artistry. Daryl has a vision for what CEDIA can be—and will be—and he has the experience to realize it.”

The move is the latest in a restructuring of the Academy’s upper management that has seen Mason effectively split the former president-CEO role into three, with him becoming chairman-CEO and naming two co-presidents: former chief diversity officer Valeisha Butterfield-Jones, who joined the Academy last year; and Panos Panay, who signed on in May after several years at Berklee School of Music. In August, longtime awards chief Bill Freimuth left the Academy, with his role being filled by chief industry officer Ruby Marchand and vice president of awards Joanna Chu; last year, Branden Chapman was elevated to the newly created role of COO.

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