\n\tOver her\u00a0 20-plus-year career, Tracy Gardner<\/strong> has seen her fair share of technological disruptions in the music business. \u201cI started right when illegal downloads took over,\u201d she says of her entry into the industry as an intern at what was then Warner Bros. Records (now Warner Records).\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAs TikTok\u2019s global head of music business development \u2014 a position she has held since February \u2014 Gardner is now running point for the biggest disruptor of the industry over the last five years. The Brooklyn Law graduate, whom ByteDance recruited in 2019 after six years in the legal affairs and business development departments at Warner Music Group, took over from Ole Obermann \u2014 whom she also worked with at WMG \u2014 when he departed for Apple Music.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n\tIn her new role as the platform\u2019s chief liaison with the music industry, Gardner oversees deals with labels, publishers and the TikTok commercial music library and works closely with the platform\u2019s strategy, finance, artist services, product and ad sales teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHer promotion comes at a fitful moment for TikTok, as ByteDance and the Trump administration are reportedly finalizing a deal that would result in a consortium of U.S. investors acquiring a majority stake in the app. Gardner was not able to comment on that process or how it might affect her division. But in this interview \u2014 her first since assuming her current role \u2014 she asserts that nearly two years after Universal Music Group temporarily pulled its artists\u2019 music from TikTok over a breakdown in licensing negotiations, and the social media platform shifted label licensing away from Merlin, which licenses digital companies on behalf of over 30,000 indie labels and distributors, \u201cWe\u2019re in a great place with the music industry. It\u2019s a dynamic partnership that, as TikTok evolves quickly, has an impact on how we\u2019re looking at deals, how we work with partners and what they want to get from a partnership with us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt Warner, you were on the other side of the negotiating table with ByteDance. How did that experience affect how you conduct your job now?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tMainly, it was great to come from the perspective of being at a label and a rights holder. [TikTok] was still relatively new when I got there, and we had to build the infrastructure and collaborate with other teams at ByteDance. A lot of our music team came over from either other DSPs [digital service providers] or labels, so there was a very good base to help the product teams, who don\u2019t have music experience, understand what these rights holders expect from tech partners and what their artists are looking for.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat did you learn from watching Ole Obermann?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOle and I worked together at Warner. Often people in business development [at music companies] come from one of two paths: f inancial or legal backgrounds. I was fortunate that Ole came from a more numbers- based, financial background, whereas mine was legal. He forced me out of my comfort zone. I wanted to look at the term sheet, and he told me, \u201cYou have to focus on the numbers. The numbers don\u2019t lie.\u201d Then we both moved to TikTok, and he [built] a great infrastructure of how the team operates, how we present budgets and how we work with senior management.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n\tHow have you tailored your current role to your perspective and experience?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOle was overseeing both recorded music and publishing, while I was more in day-to-day operations on the recorded-music side working with artists. So when I took on this new job, I said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we apply the best practices we have for artists to songwriters?\u201d One thing that we\u2019re particularly proud of is the songwriter feature we launched earlier this year [enabling songwriters to tag songs they\u2019ve written in the music tab of their account]. The songwriters are really enjoying being able to step out from behind the curtain and get the acknowledgment that they deserve. We plan to roll that out more broadly.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTikTok increasingly has prioritized e-commerce with the TikTok Shop. How is your team working with artists there?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWe are working with the e-commerce teams at the labels as well as our own. One thing we\u2019re seeing is old vinyl sells. Even though people don\u2019t have record players, they view these albums as collectibles. We also see great success when an artist does a livestream. We did one with Lizzo that was quite successful and one with the Jonas Brothers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTikTok has hosted a number of intimate pop-up events recently for artists\u2019 top fans. Ones with Miley Cyrus and Ed Sheeran come to mind immediately. This is an interesting move to me because you are a social media platform. You want to engage fans online. Why did you want to take people off their phones and get them outside with artists?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tMusic discovery starts on TikTok \u2014 discovery, promotion and fandom grows here, and we view it as a flywheel. After discovering a song, we then help to promote it with some of the campaigns that we do, then we tie that to the \u201cAdd to Music App\u201d function so that you can listen on your streaming service. We\u2019re see that what we do moves the needle on streaming, which then leads to charts, which then leads to increased fandom.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWe thought that there would be a great opportunity to bring this to real life, to invite the fans that have the greatest engagement with an artist on TikTok to come see the artist in person, even if it does mean going off the platform for a bit. What I thought was beautiful about the Miley event at Chateau Marmont, was that the people there were so impassioned that they started posting so much about it. Even though I wasn\u2019t there, they made me feel like I\u2019d actually experienced it. Right now, we\u2019re finding a way to create joyful intimate moments and creating them in a way that encourages fans to film and to bring them back onto TikTok.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAfter a song goes viral on TikTok, it often ends up doing really well on streaming services. For a while, TikTok was building its own streaming service, TikTok Music. Why was it shut down last year?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt was just a decision of priorities. We were trying to grow it for quite some time, and the decision was made: \u201cYou know what? Out of all the things we\u2019re doing, this is not succeeding at the level we want. Let\u2019s focus on other areas.\u201d It was an awesome service and it really tied in all the great parts of TikTok, but it was just a decision by management.<\/p>\n \n\tTikTok recently let go about 15 people from the U.S. and Latin American music teams, and layoffs are forthcoming in the United Kingdom. Some are interpreting this as a sign that the company is backing away from its partnerships with the music business.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tAs so many other big companies have recently done \u2014 Amazon announced a big round of layoffs, for instance \u2014 organizational changes are due to changes in structural needs. Companies can grow very quickly and then must reassess what\u2019s best for them. There is definitely no change in the priority around artist services and artist relations. For us, it\u2019s business as usual.<\/p>\n \n\tHow are you reassuring the music industry that you remain committed to the partnerships and plans you already made?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019re telling them it\u2019s business as usual, and our valued industry partners remain the highest priority. We just want to focus more on the core priorities for artists and songwriters to help drive the value on the platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHow is TikTok ensuring artists have safeguards against artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWe ask that users tag anything that\u2019s AI-created. Aside from that, I don\u2019t think the industry has a quick solution right now to identify those and take them down. If someone notifies us, our trust and safety team will take them down if needed. But it is a very interesting time right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
\n
![\"Cover,](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cover-ghazi-billboard-2025-bb03-austin-hargrave-4-1548.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
<\/p><\/div>\n\n
![\"Universal](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/umg-udio-logos-billboard-1800.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
<\/p><\/div>\n
![\"Cain](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cain-walker-the-working-man-billboard-1800.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Billboard](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/2HpFicp.png\")