A graduate of Millikin University’s School of Music, Brittni earned her Bachelor's Degree in Music Business in 2009 before relocating to Nashville, TN. Her career began with several years in public relations where she assisted with campaign efforts for artists and organizations including Hank Williams Jr., Dolly Parton, Wynonna, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, George Jones, Charlie Daniels, Jamey Johnson, Christmas 4 Kids, Country Thunder Music Festivals and more. Following her time in PR, she continued on to work directly for Country Thunder Music Festivals, joining the team as Project Manager and then ultimately assumed the role of Creative Director, handling digital marketing and advertising, brand management, event logistics, sponsor and media relations and on-site vendor contracting and management. For the past five years, Brittni has worked with the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), the world’s largest not-for-profit songwriters trade association dedicated to protecting the rights and future of the profession of songwriting. As NSAI’s Director of Creative & Communications, her responsibilities include overseeing all marketing and publicity efforts, as well as brand management and operational assistance for the company and several of their annual events including the Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival and the Nashville Songwriter Awards.

Working with some of the largest pop, rock, EDM and country acts in the world, in her 12 years at FBMM Erica has solidified her role as a trusted royalty expert within FBMM and the entertainment industry. As FBMM's Vice President of Royalties and Contract Compliance, she leads the group in providing services such as profit participation audits, record and publishing royalty audits, merchandising audits, and record label administration services. She plays a pivotal role in intellectual property valuations and catalog sales and works closely with FBMM’s business managers, client attorneys and managers to strategize ways to improve royalty deal structures and contracts.

Mary Lauren Teague is Assistant Professor of Music Business at Belmont University and Owner of Dotted i Entertainment, LLC, where she manages and advises Nashville creatives. Previously a full-time entertainment attorney at Loeb & Loeb, LLP, she brings her prior experiences of representing recording artists, legacy artists, songwriters, publishing companies, producers, and other entertainment and media companies to the table in her professor, manager, and advisor capacities in order to provide exceptional service to her students and clients. Mary Lauren serves as a Board Member of SOURCE and as Chair of the Troubadour Society Advisory Committee at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. She has been honored by the Nashville Business Journal as one of Nashville’s “Top 40 Under 40” and named to the “Up Next” list of emerging leaders in entertainment law in Variety’s “Legal Impact Report”. In her free time, Mary Lauren loves to spend time outdoors with her husband, Daniel, 1-year-old daughter Mary Fran, and her furry child, a rescued labradoodle named Ellie.

.

Tracie Hitz moved to Nashville in 2018 to start Hitz & Branding so she could help

people go after their dreams by building their personal and professional brands

through storytelling. She’s worked with large brands like the NCAA and UNICEF,

as well as small businesses that range from artists to nonprofits to a surf coach.

Hitz and her team create integrated marketing and branding plans for clients, as

well as build all of the elements necessary to implement them effectively,

including graphics, videos, websites, email campaigns, social media, digital

media, PR, booking content capture, event planning sponsorship sales,

fundraising, merchandising, management and more.

​

Her work with artist, Tyler Tisdale, on his first-ever album release resulted in over

1.8 million streams and counting on Spotify. On the nonprofit side of things, Hitz

and her team worked with the Circle of Sisterhood to raise the most money ever

in the ten year history of the organization. She is also a partner in the annual

Nashville Nights International Songwriters Festival held in Denmark that started

in 2021 and is the manager for two Grammy-nominated songwriters, Blue Foley

and CJ Field, and platinum-selling songwriter, Chancie Neal. Hitz also helped build

the Nashville Nights International Songwriters Festival in Denmark and is a partner in the

US-based company, Nashville Nights, LLC.

​

Hitz selected Nashville to start a business after she fell in love with the city when

she was planning her first Women’s Final Four in Music City when she worked as

the Director of Business Operations at the NCAA. She took over that role in

October of 2013 where she managed external operations for the Division I

Women’s Basketball Championship that led to a sell-out crowd at Bridgestone

Arena for the 2014 Women’s Final Four in first-time host city, Nashville. The

following year, she led the sales team to record the largest attendance at a

Women’s Final Four since 2010, collaborated with over 150 staff and committee

members to put on the first-ever combined championship where the Division I, II

and III champions were all crowned in the same arena in 2016 and notched

back-to-back sellouts in Dallas in 2017 and Columbus in 2018 with the latter

being the largest attendance across the entire Women’s Basketball

Championship since 2004. She created new initiatives to engage fans, business

professionals, coaches and former players during her tenure. Hitz garnered

earned local and national media with unique ideas that tell the story of women’s

basketball, including landing on ESPN’s SportsCenter Top 10 Plays for the

inaugural Dribble to Work Day in 2015, which also earned a 2016 NACMA award

and was named a finalist for the National Sports Forum's 2016 Sammy Awards.

Before the NCAA, Hitz worked for Old Hat Creative for 3.5 years where she was

the Chief Marketing Officer tasked with creating the strategic plan to grow the

company from design, video and web services to a full creative sports agency

dedicated to branding professional and college sports teams. She doubled the

company's annual revenue every year with first-class customer service,

understanding their current needs and anticipating the future trends in the sports

and entertainment industries. She also oversaw marketing, public relations and

social media to secure 30% of total clients and 65% new clients while

collaborating with over 100 collegiate and pro teams to create sales and

marketing plans to generate revenue for multiple sports, as well as assisted with

donor relations and fundraising plans. She developed the James Justice Slam

Dunk Social Campaign for the 5’9 Martin Methodist College basketball player to

compete in the 2012 State Farm Slam Dunk Contest where he took home the

dunking title as the dark-horse entry.

​

Hitz took the post at Old Hat Creative after working for 13 years at Northwestern

University where she was the associate athletic director for Sales and Marketing

Department. During her tenure at NU, she was part of a team that set records for

season tickets and single-game attendance in every admission-charging sport,

as well as won nine national marketing awards in seven years. Since starting at

NU as the Marketing Assistant in 1997, she contributed to the creation of several

initiatives that continue to build to this day, including the Wildcat Kidsʼ Club,

Womenʼs Sports Weekend, the Sports Marketing Club, the Randy Walker 5K

Walk and the Womenʼs Reunion Weekend for former student-athletes. Through

the years, she kept up with the changing technology from being part of the

creation of NUsports.com to producing the gameday content on the videoboard

in Ryan Field. In 2008, she worked with Coach Fitzgerald to become one of the

first college coaches to have a Facebook page and in 2009 she led the charge to

get 5,000 Facebook fans for the Northwestern Athletics page in less than three

weeks (NU only had 800 in the first three months leading up to that).

​

She is a frequent presenter at conventions and symposiums across the country

covering marketing, sales, female initiatives and professional development. She

started a career development blog in 2012 to supplement her career coaching,

as well as managed The Migala Report business journal from 2010-2014 and

created the WBBMarketing blog last Fall. She also developed the NACMA Online

Library in 2011 to share best practices among college marketing administrators.

Since 2000, she has been an active member of the National Association of

Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA), including being named to the

Board of Directors in 2008. When her board term ended in 2010, Kurt Esser,

Senior Associate Athletic Director at New Mexico asked her to be his advisor

during his one-year term as the NACMA President. The following year, the

incoming NACMA President, Jamie DiLoreto, Associate Athletic Director at

Boston College asked her to stay on for his term in 2011. She was then asked for

a third straight year to advise the NACMA President when Greg Herring,

Assistant Athletic Director at Northern Illinois University requested she stay on for

his term that ended in 2013.

​

Starting in 2007, she was a teaching assistant, guest lecturer and thesis advisor

for the Northwestern University Masterʼs of Sports Administration program. She's

also a frequent panelist for sports symposiums and conventions throughout the

country. She is currently a member of Women in Sports and Events (WISE) and

is serving on the Board of Directors for the music networking organization for

women, SOURCE, and a mental health non-profit organization, The Collective.

She was also a member of the National Association of Collegiate Women

Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) and Association of Women in Sports Media

(AWSM).

​

For a few years while at NU she also worked gamedays in the Stadium Suites

Department for the Chicago Bears and in the Marketing Department at the

Chicago Fire. She received her bachelorʼs degree in Communication

(Journalism) from Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri in 1997 and her

masterʼs degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern

University in 2003. At Truman State, she worked in the Sports Information Office

where she assisted with media relations for soccer and track. While in college,

she spent her summers as a sports writer for the Peoria Journal Star, which is

the local newspaper near her hometown of Kickapoo, Illinois. At the Journal Star,

she covered local sporting events, including baseball, basketball, golf, bowling

and motor sports.

Beth is a senior account manager at award winning business management firm, FBMM.  After a brief stint in banking, she found her work home and over the last 16 years has become a trusted adviser to both her award-winning clients and her employees.  She has a breadth of experience in the music industry with extensive knowledge of worldwide touring, risk management, budgets, personal finances and everything in between.  Beth, and her team, work with passion as they oversee their clients’ needs to ensure a financially secure future.  She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from the University of Tennessee and completed the MBA program at Belmont University.  Behind the scenes she is a member of the Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, serves as Treasurer of her daughter’s Girl Scout Troop and volunteers often at her local elementary school.  Outside of the office she is most likely enjoying time with family including the many activities of her three children – dance, baseball, basketball, gymnastics and more.

Born and raised in small-town Pennsylvania, Ashley Hertzog Embry always had her sights set on Tennessee. At thirteen, she wrote her parents a letter declaring that she would one day move to Nashville to work with songwriters. In 2001, she moved to her favorite city to attend Belmont University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude 4 years later.

Ashley’s internship from her final semester of college turned into her first full-time job in the industry, managing Combustion Music’s rapidly growing catalog. After more than five years with Combustion, she spent a year at My Good Girl Music before joining Hearts Bluff Music in 2013.

Over the past decade, she has risen from Executive Assistant to Vice President of Acquisitions, leading the Hearts Bluff team, project managing their deal flow, and facilitating over $100 million in catalog sales.

Ashley is an active member of SOURCE, CMA, and the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Troubadour. Outside of the music industry, she has written a memoir called Letters to My Papa, about the loss of her father, and created a deck of conversation cards called Turning Toward, designed to foster meaningful connections. Ashley’s three loves of her life are her husband Mason, her daughter Noella, and their dog Oliver.

Mallory Mason hails from the “metropolis” of Demopolis, AL and found her way to Nashville after graduating from Auburn University. She started her career at Cumulus Media before being introduced to entertainment business management. Mallory has been in the field over 10 years now and is a Business Manager at King Business & Financial Management. Her passion is helping clients attain financial success while giving them the freedom to focus on their own passion: creating music. Mallory is currently the Vice President for SOURCE, a board member of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Troubadour Society, and a member of the Country Music Association.