It’s been a good week to be The Orchard. Sony’s industry-leading distribution division — which finished 2025 with an eye-popping 8.44% current market share, by far the largest of any distribution company in the U.S., according to Luminate — is behind two of the most talked about albums of this week: Megadeth’s self-titled final release, and Bad Bunny’s all-conquering DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FoTOS.

For Megadeth, the trailblazing metal band led by Dave Mustaine, this week’s release doubles as an exclamation point on its career: After 40 years of rocking faces off around the world, the group is singing off with one last album, and in the process has nailed its first-ever No. 1 on the Billboard 200, having racked up 73,000 equivalent album units in the United States — 69,000 of which came from pure album sales, with 56,000 of that coming from physical units. Ahead of a career-spanning documentary release and a final farewell tour, it’s a fitting capstone for one of the most iconic metal acts of all time.

On the Bad Bunny front, little more needs to be said. The Puerto Rican superstar made history on Sunday night (Feb. 1) by winning album of the year at the Grammys, with DTMF becoming the first-ever album performed entirely in Spanish to earn that honor. If that’s not enough, he will also take the world’s largest stage this coming Sunday (Feb. 8), as he gears up for a headlining performance at the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, a major career milestone in and of itself. Accordingly, DTMF is primed to surge up the charts once again, after its initial No. 1 debut in January 2025.

Working across both those releases has been The Orchard’s executive vp of commerce, Mary Ashley Johnson, who oversees strategy at the company. And with those twin successes, she earns the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.

Here, Johnson talks about the strategy behind each album’s rollout, how much it means for Megadeth to finally top the main albums chart after so many years, and what Bad Bunny and Megadeth’s successes say about The Orchard. “I think what I love the most about this week is that these successes really represent who we are as a company, because it crosses all genres and languages and borders,” she says. “And that’s the thing that I’m the most proud of: being able to put wins on the board that really fit all over the place, versus just in a mainstream box.”

This week, Megadeth earned their first No. 1 album in their 40-year career with their new, self-titled album. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?

We partnered with the Frontiers label and really tried to lean into Megadeth’s authentic fan base, and really tried to amplify those fans. And as you can see in the data, the majority of those sales happened at physical retail, and so just working in partnership with physical retail through various touchpoints to have different versions available, through each independent and major physical retail sector. And D2C was a huge driver, too.

With so much of it being driven by physical, what was the strategy behind that?

We really tried to just pull all the different levers of physical and then have just this autonomous option for fans of where to buy. We didn’t offer crazy different colors or variants; we did have different colors and variants, but we tried to just keep it incredibly authentic to who the band is and what their voice was, and not make it that we were asking fans to buy multiple copies to get all of the content.

This being their final album, did that give you guys any extra incentive to deliver?

Oh, absolutely. And I think for us, we wanted to make sure that we were leaning in and delivering for Frontiers. This was a big moment for the band — they’ve never had a No. 1, and that was something that we aggressively chased to try to achieve with them.

There’s also a documentary, and they’re about to go out on their farewell tour. How does that all play together in what you guys are doing and your strategy to go for that No. 1 album?

I think that the throughline that we look at, and it’s kind of drawing the parallel between Megadeth and even Bad Bunny, is that we really wanted to activate their community. It really is authentically speaking to and amplifying that community of their fans, and it all comes back to community with Megadeth, and also with how everything comes back to Puerto Rico and his community with Bad Bunny. And I think the throughline for the week for us was really trying to authentically tap into their audience and community.

What goes into that work of finding that community, identifying what they are looking for, and then delivering for that?

We lead with our data and technology tools at The Orchard, and then we leverage all of the different departments, whether that’s global D2C, digital, physical, radio was a key component in all of this, ad sales, brand partnerships — we really do leverage all of those. But then we also lean in with tools on digital advertising and audience development, and a lot of the proprietary Orchard tools that we use internally, and all of those teams working in collaboration together.

For Megadeth to get this first No. 1 after four decades, what’s the significance of something like this for you and for The Orchard?

It’s monumental. There are people on the team who have been Megadeth fans their whole life, and they had Megadeth posters hanging on their walls. I’m getting emotional about it — it becomes emotional for all of us. I’ve been at Sony, in May it will be 32 years. So being able to have an artist like Megadeth break through and achieve that No. 1 in this climate is incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. And I think it’s what we try to do here at The Orchard, is empower these creators and these entrepreneurs to really dig in and mobilize their fans. And I feel like that’s what we all did collectively. I don’t want to say it’s an Orchard win — it really was us working in tandem with Frontiers, the label. And then it all starts with the music. And, you know, if the music wasn’t good, we could have all of the strategic vision in the world and all of the data and tools, and it wouldn’t mean that much. So it really does start with Megadeth delivering an incredible album.

You guys also distributed Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS on behalf of Rimas. That was such a major, massive album for him in so many different ways. When you think back about that campaign, what sticks out to you as having been particularly successful?

Again, I feel like a broken record talking to you, but we celebrated the one-year anniversary of that album in January, and he is so authentic to who he is, and we provide a lot of strategy and suggestions and are there to support the label, but at the end of the day, he’s not making any moves for a chart play or a revenue play. He’s doing what is right for him and his vision for that music. And so talking about it all starts with the music. That was an incredible album, the first all-Spanish-speaking album to win album of the year, and then for him to go into the Super Bowl, that just goes to who he is as an artist. 

He was very vocal on the Grammy stage about the political climate. He takes such a stance, and he’s so incredibly passionate about Puerto Rico and his fans, and his music speaks to that, and so that’s what we’re here to amplify. So I think if anything, our job varies depending on the client and the partner. And sometimes we lean in, and we have to create physical variants and mobilize D2C and certain things, and then other times we just have to be very nimble to support his vision. And that’s what we do best at The Orchard. 

This is the first time that somebody is coming from winning album of the year at the Grammys to going straight into the Super Bowl Halftime Show, arguably two of the most high-profile things that could happen for an artist. How do you take advantage of that?

Very true to who Bunny is, it’s all very authentic. We are launching a white vinyl for global retail on Friday, and we relaunched the blue D2C a couple weeks ago, we had the red Amazon vinyl, and yes, those are the three colors of the Puerto Rican flag. But that’s really it. He’s not looking to throw out a bunch of variants and have a chart play. He really wants his music to speak for what it is, and I really respect that about him and the label. The label respects his vision, and that’s what we’re all here to really empower and support and amplify — his voice and his vision. 

What are you looking forward to seeing him do on Sunday?

It’s going to be the most exciting 13 minutes. I cannot wait. We’ve been joking about [not knowing] what teams are even at the Super Bowl. I think the Seahawks and the Patriots will be there, too, but most people are just like, “It’s Bad Bunny.” I do love to see that, and I do think that this shows the power of the Spanish language and the growth of Latin music here in the U.S. and across the mainstream. And I would be remiss to not bring up our DSP partners and the way that they really rallied around Bad Bunny and around an all-Spanish-speaking album and have given him incredible mainstream pop looks that we wouldn’t have been able to garner without their support.

It really is a privilege to lead such an incredible team. Ultimately, it really is a team win for us. And I do feel like The Orchard has the best team in the business, not just in the indie sector, but across the entire industry. And I think from all the different touchpoints that we are able to deliver a global plan and a global launch, that really is important to us. The U.S. is incredibly important — it’s our largest market — but the global vision has always been critical for who we are as a company. So I think that talking about these two wins, from Megadeth to Bad Bunny, it is the pure ethos of who we are as The Orchard.