Major Country Departures: Mabe & Hunnicutt

• UMG Nashville Chair & CEO Cindy Mabe has exited after nearly 18 years with the company. There has been no announcement yet regarding a possible successor.

Mabe originally joined UMGN in 2012 as SVP of Marketing for Capitol Records Nashville, EMI Records Nashville, MCA Nashville, Mercury Nashville and UMG’s expanded suite of Country labels following its acquisition of EMI. She was elevated to President of UMGN in 2014 and named to her current role in January 2023.

Mabe joined Capitol Records Nashville in 2007 and held the position of SVP of Marketing from 2009 to 2012, when she joined UMGN. Mabe embarked on her label career in 1994 as a Promotion Coordinator at RCA Nashville, later transitioning Arista Nashville as Sr. Director of Marketing & Artist Development. [Photo: Kevin Wimpy / UMG ]

• RAMP has also confirmed that radio and records veteran Clay Hunnicutt as exited as EVP of Label Operations at Big Machine Label Group.

Hunnicutt was named GM of Big Machine Records in August 2019, and was elevated to EVP of Label Ops last January. He previously served as President & Partner of Big Loud Records.

Before his transition to the label side, Hunnicutt notably spent 17 years with Clear Channel/iHeartMedia, joining the company in 1998 as RVP of Programming and was later elevated to EVP of Programming. He made his label leap in June 2015, when he resigned as EVP/GM of iHeartMedia’s National Programming Platforms and joined Big Loud as its inaugural President.

In a statement, Hunnicutt said, “While I’m so very proud of everything we accomplished at Big Machine, I’m equally as excited about what the future could hold for me. My destination is unknown for now, but the next steps of the journey start here.” You heard the man — going forward, Hunnicutt can be contacted at clayhunnicutt615@gmail.com.

Both of these stories were first broken by our friends at Country Aircheck.