Cindy Charles, Twitch’s Head of Music, Dies in Traffic Accident

Twitch’s head of music, Cindy Charles, has died after being involved in a traffic accident last week in The Netherlands.

Twitch CEO Daniel Clancy confirmed Charles’ death Friday (Oct. 18) on LinkedIn. Clancy remarked that “anyone that 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 for Twitch including the recent DJ agreement.” 

That deal, which specifically covers DJs who live-stream on the platform, was announced in June and involved Twitch signing music licensing deals with all three major labels — Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment — as well as many indie labels represented by Merlin.

Charles was meant to speak on a panel Thursday (Oct. 17) at the Amsterdam Dance Event, an annual dance music industry conference in the Dutch capital, offering expertise for DJs using Twitch.

Before her six years at Twitch, Charles worked as an independent digital media consultant and also spent three years at Amazon, where she worked as the head of business development in the music department of Amazon Ticketing, along with working in the Video Shorts department. Earlier in her career, she spent seven years at Viacom, where she managed digital legal and business affairs for entities within MTV Networks.

Beyond those positions, Charles served as an advisor to the board of governors at the Recording Academy, was a co-founder of Women in Digital, which has more than 1,500 members, and co-founded the San Francisco chapter of She is the Music. 

Charles was based in Berkeley, Calif., and grew up in Queens, N.Y., majoring in political science at SUNY Buffalo. She is survived by her husband, Ricky Fishman, and her two sons.

“Every success, every setback, every moment of working toward our shared mission felt deeply personal,” Twitch’s Kira Karlstrom wrote in a remembrance of Charles, “because Cindy made it that way. She cared about her team with all her heart, and our work was an extension of that care.”