Al McLean in

Al McLean

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EVP Global Head of Creative at EMPIRE
📍 Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Al “Butter” McLean is a global music publishing executive with over 30 years of experience, currently serving as EVP, Global Head of Creative at EMPIRE. He also founded SongSplits, a platform for authorship governance. He is known for discovering top talent and championing songwriter rights. People often call him a hard worker who believes in new music.

A unique fact about Al is that he discovered 15-time Grammy winner Alicia Keys, who gave him his nickname “Butter.”

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Experience
20 Years
Current Role
EVP Global Head of Creative
Job Level
Leadership
Location
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Personality Overview

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Priorities

Topics Al cares about

Songwriter Rights
He founded SongSplits to prevent disputes and improve rights clarity, often speaking about the billions in unclaimed royalties due to poor data.
Music Tech Infrastructure
His work focuses on building transparent, scalable systems and platforms to support artists and manage ownership in the modern music economy.
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Career

Work history

4-2025
EVP Global Head of Creative
EMPIRE
1-2023
SVP, Global Head of Music
EMPIRE
5-2021
Senior Vice President, Worldwide Creative
EMPIRE
10-2018
Founder
SongSplits
3-2006 - 4-2020
Senior Vice President of Creative
Kobalt Music
In the press

Media appearances

EMPIRE vows to ‘revolutionize’ music publishing via new division led by Al ‘Butter’ McLean and Vinny Kumar. Featured in Music Business Worldwide
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Education
Education details unavailable
University of Maryland
Education details unavailable
Hampton University
Social presence
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Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

DISC behavioral profile

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