Jessica Vaughn is the Head of Sync at Venice Music, and President of Head Bitch Music. Jessica joined Venice in September of 2021, being chosen to build the department from the ground up. In this role, she runs their four-person, fully queer sync team globally, created all of their protocols (catalog management, pitching, legal, licensing, and administration), and has increased the size of their catalog from 300 titles to nearly 4,000 titles. During her time at Venice, Jessica has landed placements in Super Bowl LVII, NFL, ESPN, The CW, Netflix, Hulu, CBS, MTV, Vh1, BET, Disney+, Peacock, Fujifilm, Comcast, PBS, New Balance, Xbox, Fortnite, NBA 2K, and more, all within a year and a half. She is an ardent supporter of artists, and holds regular “office hours” at Venice to provide information and resources to all of her clients.
Based in Los Angeles, Jessica is not only an accomplished music industry executive, but an active and successful musician and songwriter in her own right. Before breaking into the business side of the industry in 2019, Jessica was signed to Crush Management at 16-years-old as an artist, and at 18 was signed to Sony/ATV and Geffen/Interscope as a recording artist in the same year. Turning heads under the name Charlotte Sometimes, Jessica toured with artists including Butch Walker, James Morrison, Gavin Degraw, We The Kings, The Hush Sound, Pat Monahan (Train), Vans Warped Tour and more.
After becoming disillusioned by her experience as a female artist, Jessica realized how overlooked women often are in the industry, encouraging her to change the system from within. As a self-proclaimed “lover of the process,” Jessica began working in sync and custom music, helping staff songwriters write more authentically in their own voices. In 2019, she was hired by Heavy Hitters Music (part of Made in Memphis Entertainment), where she oversaw not only the creative direction of the company, but new business development, contract negotiations, new signings, catalog management, music licensing, and more. While there, she increased HHM revenue by 107% in her first year and became VP of Sync and Creative within three.
In 2018, she started Head Bitch Music, a loving tribute to the many times she was called a “bitch” by other men in the room, where she writes custom music for brands. Along with her husband Ryan, she runs the Head Bitch Music label imprint, putting out between 5 and 20 releases a week with mainly queer and women artists. She also continues to write music under more than 25 different monikers, each with their own identity and their own extension of her humanity, allowing her to not be cast in any single box.
As an accomplished music business executive and songwriter, Jessica has been featured in various publications including Billboard, American Songwriter, Music By Clio, BizWomen, LadyGunn, Alternative Press, and more. She has also received industry awards and honors including being listed in Billboard’s Top 40 Queer Music Executives, Top 24 on The Voice Season 2, first place in the USA Songwriting Competition Folk Music category and third in Overall, #3 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart, #1 song on Shazam’s Discovery Chart with Bridgerton’s “The End” and more. She’s a sought-after speaker at conferences including Music Biz, SXSW, AIMP Global Music Publishers Summit, Women in Music, Colleges (NYU, Liberty College), and GrammyU. She’s also an active member of the Songwriter and Composer Wing at the Recording Academy, a Recording Academy voting member, Grammy U Mentor, Women in Music member, Friend of the Guild (GMS), member of the CCC, a part of Women Sound Off, and is a Co-Founder of the Web3 Music Rights Group.
When she’s not breaking barriers for women in the music industry or writing her next big hit and pitching new syncs, Jessica can be found living her life by the mantra “What Would Buffy Do?” and refusing to leave the 90s. Identifying as queer and bisexual, she’s a passionate supporter of LGBTQIA+ rights. She also raises awareness of rare diseases, including her own- idiopathic condylar resorption, and others that are underfunded and not supported by health insurance companies. As a sexual assault survivor herself, Jessica is a California Certified Counselor Advocate for Sexual Assault and Domestic Abuse Survivors where she heals herself and helps others do the same. She currently lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband Ryan, and their black cat, Giles.
