Rod Riley

Rod Riley is President and CEO of Word Entertainment, WMG’s Christian music division.  In his current role, Riley oversees Word’s entire operation, including A&R, sales and marketing, music publishing, distribution, church resources and artist services.

Riley has served as Chief Operating Officer of Word Entertainment since 2008, and has been responsible for all the business operations of Word Label Group, Word Music Publishing, Word Distribution and Word Music. Since joining Word Entertainment in 2005 as Senior Vice President of Marketing, he has been instrumental in revitalizing the company’s staff and artist roster, as well as aggressively expanding Word’s artist services business, including launching or acquiring businesses in merchandising, e-commerce, artist booking, touring, brand management and sponsorship.

Prior to joining Word, Riley served as Senior Director of Sales at Provident Music, Sony Music’s Christian music label. In 1999, while still with Sony, Riley and his wife, Susan, launched Fervent Records, a record label and music publishing company that is home to such acclaimed artists distributed through Sony, Riley sold Fervent to Word Entertainment in 2005. as BarlowGirl, Francesca Battistelli, Group 1 Crew, Sidewalk Prophets, pureNRG and Big Daddy Weave.   Rod currently serves on the GMA Executive Committee.