Chris Pizzolo, Plattsburgh alumnus and current Director of East Coast Operations at Universal Music Group, visited SUNY Plattsburgh on Sept. 4 to educate Plattsburgh students on his career path.
Pizzolo said success doesn’t come without sacrifice, and his path to reaching his top spot has had plenty of peaks and valleys.
“This trip back here has been so cathartic, and emotional, and exciting for me cause it just reminded me of how far I’ve come, and all the shit it took to get here,” Pizzolo said. “It took 15 and a half years of grinding every day and never giving up.”
Pizzolo said his passion for music helped him understand that to make it in the music industry, he was going to have to separate himself from his peers. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication and Media from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2012, Pizzolo bought himself a video camera and began working.
Pizzolo spent his first few months after college working as an unpaid intern for a booking agency in New York City. Pizzolo’s interning led him to work for Singer and Composer Poppa Chubby, a self proclaimed ‘memory of a lifetime.’
“That was the start of everything for me,” Pizzolo said. “Where I went on my first American tour and European tour.”
Pizzolo said these tours taught him essential skills in video production. He recorded concerts in-between rushes of selling merchandise and posted his videos to Youtube and Facebook.
“I think adopting new technologies really helped me, at the time social media wasn’t social media, and I adapted to it at that time,” Pizzolo said. “I was actually able to grow independently doing freelance jobs on Facebook.”
To further his outreach, Pizzolo started a blog, and began selling ads door-to-door. Pizzolo found success in his blog, eventually selling it for six figures.
A few months after the deal Pizzolo took up work at a gas station, and started his own record label.
Pizzolo managed his duties as a gas station employee and a business owner for months. He began with a single client and over time his number of clients grew, allowing him to manage his record label full time. Pizzolo said his experience at the gas station helped him understand what success feels like.
“The lows stay with you longer, you carry those losses a little longer,” Pizzolo said. “If you’re given a win, is it really a win? Winning is going through adversity and persevering.”
As Pizzolo’s talk came to a close, he left students with a message of persistence.
“There is definitely beauty in being in the grind stage, and that’s some of the most fun moments of it all,” Pizzolo said. “There’s for sure beauty in that, and I look back with great fondness on my time coming out of Plattsburgh.”
