Soft Shock’s Michelle Jubelirer Talks ‘What the Industry Needs Next’: ‘More Compassion, More Focus on Talent’
Categoria: Musica
The veteran industry executive sat down with MIDiA’s Tatiana Cirasano at the third annual Trapital Summit in L.A.
Por Billboard | 16/09/2026
“The industry needs more compassion, more focus on talent and less ego-benevolent bastards.” So responded Michelle Jubelirer , founder of the management and media collective Soft Shock , in answering the first question posed during the “What the Industry Needs Next” session at founder Dan Runcie ’s third annual Trapital Summit 2026 in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Sept. 15). Related Former Capitol Execs Michelle Jubelirer and Arjun Pulijal Launch Soft Shock Collective Billboard to Add Smart Media Albums As Chart-Eligible Sales Formats Duane 'Keffe D' Davis Gives First Interview After Tupac Shakur Murder Conviction Jubelirer was sitting down in conversation with Tatiana Cirisano , vp of music strategy for MIDiA Research. The pair addressed a wide range of talking points encompassing Jubelirer’s career trajectory “from artist lawyer,” noted Cirisano, “to label executive, to climbing the ranks to become the first female CEO of Capitol Music Group and now building a management and media collective.” Backed by a strategic investment from Sherrese Clarke’s HarbourView Equity Partners, Soft Shock is helmed by Jubelirer and partner/fellow ex-Capitol Music Group top executive Arjun Pulijal . Officially launching last year with management at its core, Soft Shock isn’t only working with artists/musicians. Jubelirer shared that under her and Pulijal’s “talent is talent” philosophy, its clientele includes a comedian (Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa, who had a show that same evening), two people in the culinary space and athletes. In other Soft Shock news, Jubelirer noted the company also has a marketing arm. “It’s pretty small now but it’s about to be quite a bit bigger [with] a company that represents a number of exciting artists and music festivals.” She also revealed that “we’re starting a company with a pretty lauded film and TV executive. We’ll be announcing that in a few weeks.” A broad range of other topics was addressed during the illuminating 25-minute conversation, with Jubelirer’s frank yet insightful comments drawing frequent bursts of attendee applause. Here are some additional sound bites: What do you think people outside of the major label system maybe misunderstand about what it actually takes to run one? When I started at Capitol, I’d come from being a lawyer. I represented a lot of artists who were very left of center, and they all really distrusted and hated their labels. I had this vision that if someone was a real artist advocate and went on to run a label, would an artist thereby feel the safest possible and make their best music? But I also had low expectations of the teams at major labels. But the reality is, I was blown away by the people there. They are incredibly passionate, hard workers. A major label sounds like an awful behemoth. But really, it’s a collection of passionate people. And if you lead them correctly and inspire them, they will really overdeliver for artists. I was incredibly impressed. Do you