Damon Whiteside

Damon Whiteside is a senior entertainment executive with nearly three decades of experience across music, film, television, live events, and digital media. His career has focused on building and evolving large-scale content platforms in close partnership with artists, artist managers, labels, and media companies, aligning creative vision with global distribution and long-term career strategy. Whiteside spent more than 15 years at The Walt Disney Company, where he held executive roles across Disney Music Group, Disney Television Networks, and Disney Consumer Products. During his tenure, he worked directly with artists and their teams on the development and expansion of careers including Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, the Jonas Brothers, and Hilary Duff. He also contributed to the growth of major global franchises such as Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Camp Rock, The Cheetah Girls, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, and Toy Story. In addition, he helped launch Disney’s touring division, extending artist brands into live and experiential entertainment through close collaboration with management and agents. After leaving Disney, Whiteside founded Nomad Entertainment Group, a Hollywood-based artist management and brand marketing agency. Through Nomad, he provided hands-on management, artist development, music production, and marketing services, working directly with talent and their representatives across projects connected to America’s Got Talent, Malibu Country, ABC Family, and multiple Disney-backed properties. This period deepened his understanding of the day-to-day realities facing artists and management teams and strengthened his ability to operate as a strategic partner across creative, commercial, and media decisions. Whiteside later joined the Country Music Association as Chief Marketing Officer, where his scope expanded significantly. As CMO, he oversaw marketing, content, and media strategy across CMA’s portfolio of major franchises, including the CMA Awards on ABC, CMA Fest, the world’s largest country music festival and its nationally televised special, and CMA Country Christmas. His responsibilities also included year-round live events, digital programming, songwriter showcases, educational initiatives, and international efforts designed to grow the genre globally. In this role, Whiteside worked closely with artists, managers, labels, agents, producers, and broadcast partners to evolve CMA’s tentpole events into platforms that balanced artistic credibility, fan engagement, and commercial impact. He played a key role in the continued growth and modernization of CMA Fest as both a global fan destination and a major content engine, and helped expand CMA’s short-form and digital programming to support artists year-round. One of the most notable creative achievements during this period was Forever Country, a collaboration celebrating the CMA Awards 50th anniversary and featuring 50 iconic artists. Developed in close coordination with artist management teams and labels, the project became the most-watched country music video of all time and earned industry-wide recognition. This chapter marked a meaningful expansion of Whiteside’s leadership responsibilities and industry influence, ultimately leading to his appointment as Chief Executive Officer of the Academy of Country Music. For the past six years, Whiteside has served as CEO of the Academy of Country Music and Executive Producer of the ACM Awards, ACM Honors, and ACM Our Country. In this role, he works directly with artists, artist managers, labels, and booking agents to identify and develop content opportunities across live broadcast, streaming, and digital platforms. Under his leadership, ACM navigated the financial disruption of the COVID era, returned to profitability, and emerged as one of the most forward-looking media brands in live entertainment. Whiteside secured the first-ever global streaming partnership for a live awards show with Amazon Prime Video, establishing the ACM Awards as the only major awards franchise to stream exclusively with live global reach across more than 280 territories. He oversees ACM’s full content ecosystem, including live broadcasts, long-form and short-form programming, social media, YouTube, and the launch of the first ACM Country FAST Channel, working closely with artist teams to ensure programming supports both creative goals and long-term career development. As Executive Producer, Whiteside has continued to evolve the ACM Awards by collaborating directly with artists and their representatives to deliver culturally relevant, genre-spanning moments. Under his leadership, the show has expanded from theaters to arenas and stadiums, rotated host cities from Las Vegas to Nashville to Dallas, and embraced creative choices that broadened its cultural reach, including the widely discussed co-host pairing of Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks. He has also integrated top artists from outside the country genre, including Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa, reflecting a broader, more inclusive approach to live music storytelling. He recently produced the sold-out 60th Anniversary ACM Awards hosted by Reba McEntire, which delivered more than 70 percent year-over-year viewership growth on Prime Video and featured the final televised performance by Alan Jackson. Across his career, Whiteside has built a reputation as a collaborative, artist-focused executive with a deep understanding of how artists and management teams navigate content, media, and platform opportunities. His experience spans television, film, streaming, digital, and live entertainment, supported by long-standing relationships across Disney, Amazon, CBS Paramount, NBCUniversal, FOX, Discovery, Apple, YouTube, Spotify, SiriusXM Pandora, and others. He is uniquely positioned to partner with artists and artist management teams to identify, develop, and execute content opportunities across a global roster and a rapidly evolving media landscape.