Twitch's head of music, Cindy Charlesdied after being involved in a car accident last week in the Netherlands.
CEO of Twitch Daniel Clancy confirmed Charles' death on Friday (October 18) on LinkedIn. Clancy noted that “anyone who uses music on Twitch owes a debt of gratitude to Cindy's work. She always had a bright smile on her face even when negotiating unprecedented music licensing deals for Twitch, including the recent DJ deal.”
That deal, which specifically covers DJs who stream live on the platform, was announced in June and included Twitch signing music licensing deals with all three major labels — Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment — as well as many indie labels represented by Merlin.
Charles was due to speak on a panel on Thursday (October 17) at the Amsterdam Dance Event, an annual dance music industry conference in the Dutch capital, offering expertise to DJs using Twitch.
Prior to her six years at Twitch, Charles worked as a freelance digital media consultant and also spent three years at Amazon, where she worked as head of business development for Amazon Ticketing's music division alongside the Video Shorts division. Earlier in her career, she spent seven years at Viacom, where she managed digital legal and business affairs for entities within MTV Networks.
In addition to these positions, Charles served as a board advisor to the Recording Academy, co-founded Women in Digital, which has more than 1,500 members, and co-founded the San Francisco chapter of She is the Music.
Charles was based in Berkeley, California and grew up in Queens, New York, majoring in political science at SUNY Buffalo. She is survived by her husband, Ricky Fishman, and two sons.
“Every success, every setback, every moment of working towards our shared mission has been deeply personal,” says Twitch Kira Carlstrom wrote in a memoir of Charles, “because Cindy made it so. She cared about her team with all her heart and our work was an extension of that care.”
