Cindy Charles, Twitch’s Head of Music and Longtime Digital Music Executive, Dies at 69

Cindy Charles, Twitch 's head of music and a digital-music veteran, died Monday from injuries she suffered in a traffic accident in the Netherlands, her husband Ricky Fishman confirms. She was 69.

Among many other accomplishments, Charles played a key role in developing Twitch's DJ category, which established it as the first platform for DJs to livestream legally (and included licensing deals with all three major labels along with many indie labels represented by Merlin), and earlier this month led the team behind the livestream of Charli XCX's album preview at Storm King in Upstate New York. She was in the Netherlands for a speaking engagement at the Amsterdam Dance Event.

Twitch CEO Daniel Clancy wrote on social media, "Anyone who uses music on Twitch owes a debt of gratitude to Cindy's work. She always had a bright smile on her face, even as she negotiated unprecedented music licensing agreements."

Her friend and colleague Kira Karlstrom wrote in a Medium post, "Cindy was more than just Twitch's Head of Music — she was the heart and soul of our team, and a force for good in everything she touched."

Charles joined Twitch, the Amazon-owned interactive livestream service, in 2018 in a partnerships and operations principal and was promoted to head of music in April of 2022, where she took a leading role in music licensing with labels and publishers, music programming and artist relations. She was previously head of business development for Amazon Tickets and Amazon's Video Shorts initiative. Earlier in her career she served as senior vice president and general counsel at MediaNet (formerly MusicNet) from 2002-2010, and as a VP of law and business affairs at Viacom from 1995-2002, managing the digital legal and business affairs for several divisions within MTV Networks, including the MTVi Group, which operated SonicNet, and the interactive divisions of MTV, VH1 and CMT. She also ran her own digital media consulting firm for many years.

A native of Queens, New York, Charles attended the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she majored in political science, but elected to follow her father's experience as an entertainment lawyer. She received her law degree from Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.

She was an advisor to the Board of Governors of the Recording Academy, a co-founder of the She Is the Music non-profit's San Francisco chapter, a co-founder of Women in Digital Media, and sat on the advisory boards of Qwire, Hi5, and Women in Music.

Charles is survived by Fishman, her son Ben Charles and stepson Sam Fishman.