ABOUT
Molly Neuman is President of CD Baby, a Virgin Music Company and the leading music distributor dedicated to empowering independent and self-releasing artists. As President, Neuman leads CD Baby’s strategy and management, supporting millions of artists worldwide. She continues to shape CD Baby into the go-to platform for modern music creators, driving the launch of innovative technology, expanded artist services, and tailored marketing support to meet musicians' and songwriters' evolving needs. Molly previously served as Chief Marketing Officer at Downtown, where she led marketing efforts for the company and its subsidiaries, including CD Baby, Curve, FUGA, Songtrust, and Downtown’s Artist & Label Services, Publishing, and Neighboring Rights divisions. She also served as President of Downtown-company Songtrust, which, under her leadership, grew to manage more than 3 million copyrights for more than 350,000 writers in 145 countries. With a prolific career that has been focused on empowering musicians at all career stages, Neuman has been Head of Music at Kickstarter, Interim President and Vice President of the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) and has held senior roles in licensing in digital music, as well as label and artist management. Molly currently serves on the Advisory Board of Women in Music, We are Moving the Needle, and the board of Amplify Arts Project. She has previously sat on the boards of the Music Business Association, SoundExchange, and A2IM. In 2025, Neuman was named Music Week’s International Woman of the Year and was recognized by Billboard on its 2018 Digital Power Players List, as well as its Women in Music Lists for every consecutive year from 2019 to 2025. Her musical career began as a drummer in Bratmobile, a punk band that was in the first wave of the riot grrrl movement.
PANELS
All Grown Up: Independent Artists and Human Creativity in the Age of Technology - Fireside Chat: Virgin Music Group Co-CEO JT Myers & CD Baby President Molly Neuman
Today’s independent artists find themselves at a crossroads. The barriers to entry, once a critical gatekeeper to their careers, have all but disappeared; it has never been easier, cheaper or faster to release a song to a global audience. But with this accessibility has come an avalanche of content and growing pressure on artists seeking long-term, sustainable careers to keep up.
CD Baby has spent nearly thirty years at the vanguard of music distribution and consistently maintained its position as one of the leading distributors of independent music. Following Downtown’s acquisition by Virgin Music Group, it finds itself with renewed resources, newly powered by the infrastructure and global reach of one of the industry’s leading independent music companies. But as models change, trends evolve and competitors come and go, its core dedication to quality over quantity remains.
That new home also reflects a broader evolution across the independent music sector, as Virgin Music Group brings together a growing range of services, technology and global capabilities designed to support independent artists, labels and entrepreneurs at different stages of their development — while preserving the independence at the heart of their businesses.
In this fireside chat, Virgin Music Group Co-CEO JT Myers and CD Baby President Molly Neuman discuss this new chapter and the rapidly changing independent music landscape around it: how technology is reshaping the opportunities and pressures facing artists; the need to focus on craft despite the pressure to join the noise; and how the industry can help artists build sustainable careers without losing sight of the human creativity that drives them.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026, 12:00 PM