Joel Flatow | The Future Perfect Project (original) (raw)

Joel Flatow is Senior Vice President of Artist & Industry Relations and Chief of West Coast Operations for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the major music companies. He first joined the RAA in 1995 to help mobilize grassroots, artist and industry engagement to secure passage of the "Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995,” signed into law by President Clinton on November 1, 1995.

Flatow opened the RIAA’s first west coast operations office in September 2000, leading RIAA’s statewide relations, politics and policy for California; helping to guide legislative efforts aimed at protecting and promoting a healthy environment for music and other intellectual property; as well as serving as liaison to entertainment and political figures in Los Angeles. Flatow created and heads the RIAA’s artist relations program, building relationships with individual recording artists; aiding in the development of national campaigns; and helping to produce major events on Capitol Hill and for Presidential National Conventions and Inaugurals.

Flatow helped build the association’s industry relations department, fostering joint activities among various constituencies of the music community and building coalitions to strengthen the voice of music creators – a role for which he was termed in an L.A. Times profile as “The RIAA’s Musical Diplomat.”

Flatow previously served as Legislative Director of the Congressional Arts Caucus, one of Capitol Hill’s largest and most active legislative service organizations with 280 bipartisan Congressional members, advocating for federal arts support and monitoring a wide range of cultural, arts and entertainment industry-related legislation. Prior to that, he served as Special Assistant to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He is a graduate of Yale University, as well as of Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music Pre-Colleges, and performed professionally as a tenor with the Kennedy Center’s Washington National Opera for ten seasons.
Flatow currently serves on the Board of Directors of Future Perfect Project, The Ally Coalition and National Music Council, as well as the West Coast Committee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He previously served for seven years on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of The Trevor Project, engaging recording artists in the organization’s mission as well as helping to create and Co-Chair the group’s first Public Policy & Advocacy Committee. In 2017, he was honored by the California Legislature in an official floor ceremony as part of the LGBT Caucus’s Pride Celebration. In addition to the L.A. Times, Flatow has been featured in Billboard Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Advocate, and Celebrity Access, and was named in 2023 to Billboard’s Pride: Movers and Shakers in the Music Industry.