COVER STORY : She Advanced the Old-Fashioned Way--She Earned the Promotion

Sylvia Rhone, generally regarded as the most powerful woman in the record industry, never doubted that she’d one day run her own company.

The Harlem native, who grew up listening to Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, says repeated encounters with racism and sexism in the music industry only fueled her commitment to push harder.

After an entry-level job as secretary in 1975 at Buddah Records, Rhone worked in a variety of record company promotion departments before being named the head of national promotion for Warner-owned Atlantic Records in 1983.

The next stop on the corporate elevator was head of Atlantic’s black music department, followed by vice president and then senior vice president of EastWest Records in 1988. Since taking over as chief executive officer of that company three years later, she helped drive annual revenues at the firm from $50 million to $79 million.

“To say she’s a great female executive misses the point entirely,” says Doug Morris, the Atlantic Records chief who named her to the position. “She’s hard working, intelligent and her instincts are always right on the money. She’s had hit after hit. This person is an absolutely terrific company chief.”

Rhone--who gets up an hour early every day to make her daughter breakfast and go to the gym--says she has no illusions about why she rose to the top: She got results. Her company has been on a multimillion-dollar hot streak since the day she took over. And the beat continues: EastWest racked up a bullish $22-million first quarter this year, driven by the success of such best-selling acts as En Vogue and Da Lench Mob.

“This is a business and I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t made a direct impact on the bottom line,” she says. “Still, I think that thanks to my success and the success of others that, eventually, that sexist good ol’ boy school of thought will go the way of the dinosaur. It’ll take us a few years to accomplish it, but hey, I’m up for the fight. And so are a lot of other women.”

Unlike Rhone, the other two top ranking women in the music industry were recruited from outside record companies: Michele Anthony, executive vice president of Sony Music, was an entertainment attorney in Los Angeles, while Terri Santisi, executive vice president and general manager of EMI Music, was a Wall Street accounting specialist in New York.

Anthony, daughter of the former manager of such rock acts as Peter Frampton and Humble Pie, was already a highly touted attorney when Sony chief Thomas D. Mottola lured her into switching professions in 1990. Her client list at the time included such hotshot bands as Guns N’ Roses and Soundgarden.

Anthony joined Sony as a senior vice president and played a pivotal role in signing such acts as Seattle’s best-selling Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. In her post, she helps Mottola oversee all of the firm’s corporate decisions, including talent acquisition and budget considerations.

“Michele is the ideal music executive,” says Mottola. “She has creative insight and legal expertise and has been a vital element in the company’s growing success.”

Santisi was asked in 1990 to join EMI Music by Charles Koppelman, the $2.4-billion company’s North American head, after she negotiated the merger and acquisitions of several record and music publishing companies. She played a crucial role in reshaping EMI’s infrastructure in 1991 before being invited to help overhaul the company’s North American division.

“We chose Terri over several guys we had considered for the job,” says Koppelman. “She’s highly focused, gets along great with everybody and is a very tough business person. This woman can be murder in negotiations.”

Santisi, 39, who was promoted to her current position in February, is optimistic about recent advancements for women in the music business.

“If you’ve got the talent and the skills, you’re going to succeed,” she says. “I think the future for women in this industry is wide open.”