TaP Music President Wendy Ong Opens Up Her Career, Confidence and Discrimination for AAPI Month
Thania Garcia Wendy Ong brings an extraordinarily diverse background to her current role as president of TaP Music. Her career path has led her from Singapore to Hong Kong to New York to Los Angeles, working with Clive Davis, Diddy, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Universal Music, Roc Nation, and beginning in 2018, at TaP, where she heads up the West Coast office and has worked closely with Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding, Caroline Polacheck and (previously) Dua Lipa.With vast experience in marketing and management — she was even head of classical at EMI Music — she finds all of her skills coming into play at the multifaceted TaP, which also includes a label and publishing and digital marketing divisions.
But like most women, not to mention immigrants, in the music industry, she faced a number of obstacles along the way. More than two decades into her career, Ong — who has appeared on several Variety power lists — hopes to give back to future generations of artists and music executives in the hope that her story can provide an example, advice and optimism.
Rather than format this conversation as a traditional Q&A, we’ll just let her talk.My mother was a tiger mom — it’s quite an immigrant thing, not just restricted to East Asian families.
My parents were very unsupportive at the beginning: The music business was in a very different place, especially in Asia, although obviously that has changed.
