MusiCares Executive Director Laura Segura Abruptly Leaves Post

Laura Segura, executive director of MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charity-focused partner organization, has departed from her post after five years in the role, according to the Recording Academy’s website and an email sent to staff by CEO Harvey Mason Jr.

The abruptness, wording and timing of the announcement, which was sent to staff over the Memorial Day holiday — a common time for burying news — and the Academy’s lack of response to press inquiries suggests a less-than-smooth departure. The memo announced a “key leadership transition” and stated that Segura is “no longer with MusiCares.” It continued that Theresa Wolters, who is the organization’s head of health and human services, “is stepping into the role of interim executive director.” The change is reflected in the MusiCares website, which no longer includes Segura’s name and lists Wolters as “interim” executive director. Reps for the Recording Academy did not respond to Variety’s requests for further information over the weekend; Billboard first reported the news on Saturday.

MusiCares, which was founded in 1989 an independent 501(c)(3) charity, has paid out well over $100 million in relief to musicians and music executives over the years, including more than $30 million in COVID relief to the music community during the pandemic and $10 million in Los Angeles wildfire relief earlier this year. Additionally, $16 million was raised by MusiCares and the Recording Academy during Grammy weekend via its Fire Relief campaign and its annual Persons of the Year gala, which honored the Grateful Dead. Segura spoke of the organization’s efforts at the event.

However, along with its admirable service to the music community, the organization’s top role has been troubled in recent years. Segura’s predecessor, Dana Tomarken, was abruptly fired in April of 2018 after 25 years with the Academy, resulting in her filing a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the Academy.

The lawsuit included a withering 4,500-word letter Tomarken wrote to the Academy’s Board of Trustees that essentially said she was being blamed for the financial losses the Academy took in holding the Grammy Awards in New York that year, rather than its usual home base of Los Angeles. She accused former chairman/president Neil Portnow of brokering a deal without her knowledge to hold the organization’s annual Person of the Year event at a venue that left the charity with a significant loss in its fundraising efforts, after she had made arrangements to hold the event at a competing venue. The Grammy Awards were held in New York that year for the first time since 2003, leading to a $5 million shortfall for the show, which Tomarken claimed Portnow attempted to cover by steering funds away from MusiCares. She also accused Portnow of running a “boys’ club” and said she was terminated “after a painful year of trying to protect MusiCares from being exploited, enduring ongoing instances of workplace abuse and harassment” from two male coworkers whom she named in the letter.

Portnow and the Academy denied any wrongdoing; the lawsuit was settled out of court in November of 2019.

Her departure left MusiCares without an official leader when the pandemic began just four months later, but Mason and MusiCares chair/Amazon Music chief Steve Boom took the reins and began distributing relief money almost immediately. Segura was named executive director in May of 2020; she had been the Recording Academy’s vice president of membership and industry relations for the previous seven years.

Variety will have more on the situation as it develops.