Founder & Principal
TimeZone International
Closter, N.J.
Vivian Scott Chew, founder and principal of TimeZone International, has a reputation as a “pioneer risk-taker.” Launched more than two decades ago, TimeZone is the first and only U.S.-based African-American company that provides recording artists with international
marketing and promotion, touring, licensing, and distribution services. Its clients include emerging and Grammy-winning artists, major corporations, and record labels. “I started a company that didn’t exist. Nobody in the U.S. was looking after artists’ interests abroad,” Chew states.
Chew was the first African-American female membership representative at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). She put that job on the line when she created the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Awards. “They were giving awards for the top pop artists, country artists, and British artists, but not to ‘us.’
They told me I would lose my job if I went to the Board of Directors,” she recalls. “That year, Lionel Ritchie, Stevie Wonder, and Quincy Jones were the top-three pop songwriters and nobody was celebrating them.” Her case was irrefutable. This year, the awards will celebrate its 32nd anniversary.
Chew attended Georgetown University. Entertainment attorney Louise West helped to propel her career. “She was my first employer in the music business and the first person to take a shot on me,” Chew remarks. “She’s still the person I call on when I need that support.” Chew and her husband, music director and producer Ray Chew, own Chew Entertainment, an event production company whose clients include Carnegie Hall,
The Apollo Theater, Sony Music, The Jackie Robinson Foundation, BET Networks, and The National Urban League. The couple also established The Power2Inspire Foundation and RVMK recording studio to identify and nurture new talent.
Amazingly, she finds time for herself. “I go to the water.
