Keith Naftaly

Keith Naftaly (born in San Francisco, California) is a radio program director, a music business professional and A&R executive for various major record labels including Arista, J, DreamWorks, Sony Music and presently Executive VP and Head of A&R for RCA Records. He is often credited for the breaking of early hip hop through the San Francisco radio station KMEL and collaboration with many renowned artists and has won many awards, most notably AIR’s "Best Ears In Radio" competition, as well as several important industry awards.

Career

He got his start in San Francisco in 1984 as music director for radio station KMEL incorporating more R&B, dance and rap music into the station. As appointed Program Director for the station he actively supported local Bay Area-based artists like Sway & King Tech, who started their radio show "The Wake Up Show" on KMEL. In 1993, Naftaly was appointed Vice President of Programming for Los Angeles' station KKBT (92.3 The Beat), a sister station to KMEL.

In 1995, he left radio to work for the music mogul Clive Davis at Arista Records.

Then he moved on to other record labels with positions added:

• 1995: Arista Records - Vice President of A&R
• 2000: J Records - Senior vice president, A&R,
• 2003: DreamWorks Records - Executive A&R Staff and later Universal (after DreamWorks Records was sold)
• 2004: Sony Music - Senior Vice President of A&R
• 2009: RCA/Jive - Senior VP, A&R
• 2013: RCA Records - Executive Vice President & Head of A&R

In 2011, Naftaly took part in the judging panel of BravoTV's Platinum Hit, an elimination competition series featuring 12 as yet undiscovered singer-songwriters, where talented newcomers battled through a series of innovative songwriting challenges to find out who's ready for the top of the pop charts.