Michele Smith

Michele Smith serves as Vice President of Legacy and Estate Brand Management at Craft Recordings, the catalog label of Concord, the largest independent global leader in the development and acquisition of recorded music, music publishing and theatrical performance rights. Michele procures licensing and preserves the legacies of Stax Records, The Estate of Billie Holiday and The Estate of Tammy Wynette. She proactively works with Concord’s Film & TV team to develop viable productions pertaining to each of those important legacies. She recently served as an Executive Producer on the documentary, Billie and she is currently working on a new HBO docuseries about Stax Records. Michele also pursues the non-musical interests and opportunities around significant anniversaries for all of the entities under her purview, including a Stax theatrical stage play.

Michele is the recipient of the 2024 Grammy Award for her producing role with “Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos,” which won the award for Best Historical Album. The seven-CD collection of 146 tracks puts the spotlight on Stax’s legendary roster of songwriters. In addition to Best Historical Album, “Written in Their Soul” also won a Grammy for Best Album Notes.

Michele has been named one of Billboard's Women in Music Top Executive Honorees as well as a Billboard Indie Power Player, Michele works closely with and serves as Concord’s representative on the Board of Directors for the Soulsville Foundation, a 501C3 non-profit that operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Stax Music Academy and The Soulsville Charter School, in Memphis, TN. Michele mentors youth interested in musical careers and is a vocal change agent and member of Concord’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee and Impact Investment Committee, which focuses on investing in music and theater industries that serve underrepresented and marginalized communities.

Prior to her position at Concord, Michele was a Marketing/Video Executive at Virgin Records, MCA Records, Hidden Beach and Perspective Records. Throughout her career, she has worked with some of music’s most notable global entertainers such as James Taylor, Paul Simon, Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Common, Gang Starr, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, Yasiin Bey better known as Mos Def, Scarface, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Angie Stone, Devin The Dude, Valerie June, Lalah Hathaway, Mint Condition, super producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and many of the legendary Stax artists, just to name a few.

Michele is a graduate of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada with a BA in Liberal Arts. She resides in Los Angeles, CA.