CAMILLE HACKNEY, VICE PRESIDENT
MULTIMEDIA/BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT, ELEKTRA ENTERTAINMENT
The launch of MTV on her thirteenth birthday
proved prophetic for Camille
Hackney, who spent her high school and early
college years playing bass and guitar in
an all-girl band, and dreamed of being a rock
star. Not knowing how to get into the
music business, or even what jobs existed, she
studied economics at Princeton, and
after graduation, took a job on Wall Street as
a financial analyst for Merrill Lynch.
Hackney soon realized that she was in the wrong
line of work, and enrolled in busi-
ness school. While taking classes, she worked
in the marketing technology group of
HBO cable network, where her varied interests
in television, music, and technology
converged. "Working at HBO got me into the
entertainment field. I sort of started to
realize there was a business behind the
music."
CASE STUDY:
THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS
JOB:
"The music business has been around for
decades, but technology has
only been combined with music for about five
years. Because technol-
ogy is a new division, it's difficult,
sometimes, to get the resources
needed. People understand that it's an
important part of the music
business and it will fundamentally change how
we do business in the
future, but I struggle to get access to
resources, whether that be human
resources, monetary resources, or hardware and
software. This is one
of the things that makes my job
difficult."
THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS JOB:
"I love the learning that I get to do in this
job. The Internet is chang-
ing every day. My challenge is to keep on top
of things. I read at least
three different newspapers and at least 50
different magazines every
week. The magazines range from
People to Interactive Age and all
points between. I try to keep on top of what's
going on marketing-
wise, Internet-wise, and technology-wise, so I
can apply that to what I
do. That's the part I love. In general, I love
the energy in the music
industry. It is very similar to Wall Street.
People work really hard, but
they also play really hard. It's never boring.
I actually enjoy coming to
work."
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