The Harry Fox Agency
President and CEO
CLASS OF 1975
The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) is the leading U.S. music rights licensing organization, representing more than 30,000 music publishers and their catalogs of more than 1.5 million songs. It collected $371.5 million in royalties for its publishers in 2005, with 1.9 million mechanical licenses processed in the year. At the head of this 80-year-old company is Gary Churgin, who says, "W&J gave me the basic tools to go and work in any environment." He certainly proved that when he joined HFA in 2001 after successful careers in government and banking, but with no experience in the music industry.
Growing up in Milburn , New Jersey , Churgin enjoyed easy access to New York City .So, when he learned that W&J had more than just an excellent pre-professional program, but also other stimulating programs such as a series of special lectures byvarious authors, artists, and musicians he knew the College was the right fit. "W&J was supportive, nurturing, stimulating, and it sparked my intellectual curiosity," says Churgin. He thinks of W&J as unique because although it is a relatively small school, it offers a top-quality education in so many different disciplines.
Churgin believes that it is important to be open to new ideas. The goal of a liberal arts college, such as W&J, is to open students minds through the exploration of various and diverse ideas and cultures. And he should know. Not only does he work globally with a wide variety of cultures and genres every day in the music industry, but since he wasappointed the president and CEO of Harry Fox, he has helped the agency and its staff to understand and take advantage of new technologies and business practices in the fast-changing marketplace that is today's music industry.
Since Churgin joined the company, he and his team have transformed it into a client-focused, collaborative business, which allows HFA to expand its offerings, adding licensing for online subscription services, ring tones, digital background music,lyrics, and more to its primary business of mechanical licensing. Moving from what most consider to be the Dark Ages, HFA was recognized by the music industry trade magazine Billboard in their 2006 Digital Music Power Players list HFA was the onlypublishing-related entity to be included. Every day, Gary practices the openness to newideas that he learned at W&J.
