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In 2019, Lylette Pizarro founded Influence Media Partners, the music and entertainment company with a mission to transform the music space through its partnerships with artists, songwriters, and creative executives.
“At the heart of it, founding Influence was about partnering with artists to protect their legacy and future works,” says Pizarro, who is a comanaging partner. “Our differentiator was about being a part of an artists’ bench and helping manage those assets in order to drive future value with new opportunities. We’re not just about transactional catalog acquisitions and exiting them.”
Pizarro and the Influence team view their roles as co-custodians with the artists, and that drives the successes they’ve seen the past six years. In 2022, BlackRock and Warner Music Group invested $750 million in Influence to acquire catalogs from female and diverse artists. This investment led to a groundbreaking partnership with Enrique Iglesias—the company’s first-ever Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deal.
Earlier in 2024, Visa CMO Frank Cooper reached out to Pizarro about Visa Live at le Louvre, which was a kickoff for the brand at the Paris Olympics. Pizarro booked Post Malone and RaiNao for the first-of-its-kind global concert.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to see the thesis we wrote being actualized,” she says. “There are new opportunities that we could have never imagined.”
Pizarro spoke with Hispanic Executive about Influence’s approach with NIL rights, how she’s seen the music industry evolve throughout her career, and the opportunities for Latino investors.
What is the significance of NIL rights in the music industry today?
In sports, you have a role for a marketing agent, but that doesn’t really exist in music. Influence’s NIL investments is us serving that role. We’re very focused on marketing execution against every music investment.
Marketing for talent has long been important. What the market is now seeing is that there’s so many different ways to think about NIL—how to partner with artists on their rights and how to drive value to them. Some folks are taking a mass licensing play, in which they take full control of those rights. They essentially look at a historic performance, apply a multiple, and then take control.
Influence is taking a different approach around NIL, similar to how we approach the market. It’s around partnership; it’s around exclusive rights to us and nonexclusive rights; it’s around unlocking new value that hasn’t been realized yet. We’re in the early days of execution, but we’re seeing so much opportunity.
How does Influence Media Partners approach the management and monetization of NIL deals with artists?
We spend a lot of time assessing and auditing the opportunity and understanding the artist’s NIL history—what’s been done, what hasn’t been done, what’s been done well, and what can be done much better. We hire an insights team to compile a report to compare and contrast the insights and discovery. We then have that team look for white spaces of opportunity.
How did your partnership with Enrique Iglesias for your first-ever NIL deal come about?
Let me begin by saying that this deal is one I am enormously proud of on both a personal and professional level. Enrique Iglesias is a global icon who has done so much for Latin music and our culture. We were brought into the conversation with him because of our invaluable, deep relationships in the music industry. Only a few companies were invited to be considered, and Enrique and his reps narrowed it down to two to three potential partners.
Enrique’s level of involvement was second to none. He was on the front lines every step of the way, asking important questions regarding our business thesis and intention. Enrique is not only a creative genius but a brilliant mind as well. I hope people give him that credit. His thoughtfulness and protection of his art made us only want to partner with him more. It demonstrated how much he cared about his music rights. It’s an absolute honor to be his partner.
How do you ensure that artists retain control and benefit from their creative works while partnering with Influence Media Partners?
All deals are different but in many of our partnerships, the artists have a seat at the table and work collaboratively with Influence. We work as a team to understand what their interests are and aren’t, find opportunities that they’re excited about, and build value collectively. We would never ask an artist to get behind something or align with a brand that feels inauthentic to who they are.
How has the landscape of the music industry evolved since you started, and where do you see it heading in the future?
There’s been so much disruption in the landscape. With new technologies, more data is available to us than ever before. Social media has also broken barriers down. Music used to require big radio investments from record labels to become popular, but since artists and fans now have a direct line via social media, there has been a complete shift. Although radio is still important, its role in how music is shared and becomes mass has changed.
The way fans consume music has also drastically changed. Fans are not limited to what’s available in their own personal music library or what’s being played on the radio. They have access to global music on various platforms. This enables discovery and rediscovery of songs, which wasn’t able to happen previously at this rate.
“We work as a team [with the artists] to understand what their interests are and aren’t, find opportunities that they’re excited about, and build value collectively.”
Lylette Pizarro
Fans can now make a choice and have the power to decide. They are on the driving end of it. That’s the difference maker and part of our thesis. That’s the opportunity in music today.
That has also been illustrated in the recent mainstream popularity of Latin music. I remember meeting with Rebecca Leon (CEO and founder of Lionfish Entertainment) right before J Balvin was at his peak. We were so excited that Latin music was finally getting its chance to get on the pop charts. With Latin artists like J Balvin, Bad Bunny, and Anitta, they’ve all stayed at the top of the charts, which their fans have been driving.
What challenges have you faced as a Puerto Rican woman and one of the few female founders in the music investment sector?
In the historically male world of entertainment and institutional investing, there are so few women in the room, let alone women of color. This disparity is also representative of the music rights investment space. In fact, I believe I may be the only Latina female founder in this field.
I’ve been in the industry for a very long time. Although it has evolved and I’m seeing more women and women of color in these rooms, we’re still widely underrepresented and much more progress needs to be made. The interesting thing is, this is something that actually fires me up. I am confident in my ability, my value, and my right to be in these rooms. And the more rooms I enter—rooms with tables filled by record labels executives, artist managers, and Wall Street power players—I believe I am creating the space for more women of color to be rightfully accepted and included at these tables.
You’re going to have a lot of “Nos” in your process, but it’s crucial to move through that casting of doubt and build up your grit. Perseverance, thick skin, and knowing your worth are instrumental to success.
As a Latina woman, it was also very important for me to prioritize investing in music that is often overlooked by investment peers. This is a leading pillar in our thesis. The globalization of Latin music has taken the world by storm, and honestly its recognition is long overdue. I believed the investment market was a bit dubious toward the genre. With Latin music specifically, I wanted to make sure Latin was at the forefront of our portfolio. It represents one of the most vibrant styles of music in the world. I’m proud to say over a third of Influence’s latest fund is dedicated to music assets from diverse genres, including Latin.
What advice do you have for Latino investors who are looking for opportunities in the music industry?
Having a thoughtful thesis is critical. I’ve heard from investors that at times, they can’t discern one strategy from another. Some key questions to consider include: What’s your lane? What do you think is untapped? What can you do differently than the rest of the market? What is your value proposition? Who are the best people to surround yourself with? What makes you the right person to execute your strategy?
I hadn’t historically invested in music rights, but I really understood driving value to music, as well as negotiating and building relationships with artists. Influence had the trust in the artist community and the confidence to execute our thesis.
Some of the feedback we received early on is that our thesis was really thoughtful in terms of team construction, which is critically important in a crowded marketspace. This is why we brought on someone like Lynn [Hazan, comanaging partner of Influence Media], who not only spent thirty-plus years as a CFO in the music industry, but also spent time investing in different parts of the industry—from recorded music rights, to publishing, and various other parts of the business.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
