Clive Davis

One of the most successful and enduring figures in 20th and 21st century popular music, Clive Davis served as president of CBS Records, where he discovered such performers as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Aerosmith and Janis Joplin. He would later establish his own label, Arista, which became a powerful force in the recording industry on the strength of such artists as Whitney Houston, The Notorious B.I.G. and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Patti Smith, Usher, TLC and countless others. His unerring knack for uncovering top talent made him the target of corporate shakeups at CBS, Arista, and his subsequent label, J Records, but in each occasion, Davis emerged not only victorious, but with greater positions of power within newly formed recording entities, including Sony Music, which made him its COO in 2008. A Grammy winner for Santana's unheralded 2000 comeback Supernatural, as well as a non-performer inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Clive Davis was one of the few executives within the industry who truly deserved the title of music mogul legend.