Warner Nashville Head Cris Lacy on Leadership

One of the important lessons in Warner Records Nashville chair/president Cris Lacy’s development as a leader came in the unlikeliest of places: a strip club.

She was neither a stripper nor a patron, but an aspirant, obsessive creator paying her dues in Music City years ago as a waitress at the now-dormant Stagecoach Lounge on Murfreesboro Pike. She made a flip, dismissive comment about a strip joint to a Stagecoach customer who was a bouncer at the nudie bar, and he challenged her to come out and interview the staff — including the girls — and get an education. Lacy took him up on it, and after a round of deep-dive conversations, she saw them all as real people with stories that were sometimes different than she had anticipated.

The music business can, at times, be as cartoonish as that other form of entertainment, but as a result of that day at the club, Lacy takes care to remember in her role as a label head that the players and the industry are all multi-dimensional.

“It’s made me more exploratory in everything that I do in my life,” she notes. “It’s made me want to understand where people are, where they came from, where they want to go, why they want to go there, and that’s everything about this job. What brought you to music? Why do you write the music that you write? Why, when you go on the road, do things happen? Instead of making a flippant comment, you know, like, ‘So-and-so’s crazy,’ it’s really seeing these people as human and operate as though they are as valuable — or more so — as [me].”

Lacy is one of six inductees set to join the SOURCE Nashville Hall of Fame on Aug. 25 as the organization continues to celebrate the women who have helped build an industry that generates an estimated $10 billion in annual economic activity, according to a 2022 report from the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

This year’s SOURCE class includes Debbie Cheek Carroll, MusiCares; Paige Conners, AFM Local 257; Margie McGahey, Country Music Association; Sherry Oakley, BMI; and Carla Wallace, Big Yellow Dog.

“These are women warriors in our business,” Lacy asserts.

They’re being recognized at a moment when country seems — for now, at least — more friendly to female executives and artists. Women held all five spots on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs earlier this summer for seven straight weeks, the longest all-female domination of the list in the chart’s history.

Meanwhile, Lacy is part of a notable growth in female leadership at the top of country label structures. Also in leading positions are Sony Music Nashville chair/CEO Taylor Lindsey and Triple Tigers co-presidents Annie Ortmeier and Raffaella Braun.

Despite the advances, parity is still somewhere in the future, making it all the more important to recognize women’s achievements now.

“Women are still the minority in the artist space, even though we’re having some great success with some new female artists, which is long overdue,” Lacy says. “They’re still the minority in the executive space. The women that I know, we kind of operate with eyes in the back of our head. We are looking forward toward our vision, but we’re always looking backward to remember what the people in front of us sacrificed, what opportunities they didn’t get, so that we don’t [perpetuate] those challenges for the next generation.”

Indeed, Avery Anna — a Warner artist who won the Academy of Country Music’s new female vocalist of the year award — sees Lacy as a strong leadership example.

“She’s the perfect model — a powerhouse woman — and I think that she’s kind of paved a new path in the industry,” Anna says. “Being able to run an entire label as a female, and taking charge and coaching people with humility and grace, it’s a very beautiful thing to watch.”

Lacy is appropriate for the role, overseeing a roster that — through direct contracts and partnerships — includes Cody Johnson, Dan + Shay, Ashley McBryde, Cole Swindell, The Castellows and Hudson Westbrook. She’s curious enough about the world to understand their artistic perspectives, but blue-collar enough to relate to their working-class roots.

“The first time I ever went to dinner with Cris, we went to a real fancy restaurant,” recalls Gavin Adcock. “She pulled up in — I’m pretty sure it was an ‘04 Forerunner, an old beat-up car — and I was like, ‘I think I like this lady.’ She’s not all flash, you know. She’ll get down and work.”

The lessons Lacy learned from her strip-club interviews have helped her dig below the surface with the label’s artists, but also with the staff. She came up through the A&R department, focused on building the roster and facilitating relationships with producers, publishers and songwriters. She initially became a Warner division chief in 2023 as a co-head of the label — first sharing the role with Ben Kline, then with Greg Nadel — which also meant splitting the oversight of particular Warner teams. She became the solo leader nine months ago and has steadily pushed herself to increase her understanding of the departments that she hadn’t previously directed.

Lacy is, in essence, seeking to grow in a way that inspires her artists and her staff. She has, like her SOURCE peers, overcome large hurdles to land in a job that was historically male. It takes strength to make that climb, and part of that strength includes a willingness to recognize — as she did in the strip-club experience — what she doesn’t fully know. Then ask questions.

“Understanding exactly who you are, taking accountability for who you are, but not being afraid about what other people are going to say about who you are — that’s power,” she says. “It’s not like I’m going to be who I want to be with no accountability. That’s narcissism, you know, but self-awareness is the key to all of this. It’s the key to leadership. It’s the key to success.”