Teresa LaBarbera Whites

Teresa LaBarbera Whites is an American A&R, music executive, talent scout, and executive producer, best known for discovering Destiny's Child and Jessica Simpson.[1][2][3][4] She is currently the A&R executive for Chloe x Halle.[5]

Originally the Southwest regional talent scout for Sony Music in the 1990s, Whites was offered an A&R position with Columbia Records, eventually pitching and signing Destiny's Child and Jessica Simpson to Columbia.[6][7] Over the next eight years, she would organize several multi-platinum projects: Sweet Kisses (1999), The Writing's on the Wall (1999), Survivor (2001), In This Skin (2003), Dangerously in Love (2003), and Destiny Fulfilled (2004). Whites was then offered the Jive/Zomba Vice-President of A&R position, where she would subsequently oversee the direction of Nick Lachey's 2006 solo breakthrough album What's Left of Me,[8] as well as various Backstreet Boys, JC Chasez, and Britney Spears projects.[9][10][11][12] Whites would eventually reunite with Destiny's Child member Beyoncé Knowles in 2011, first becoming Senior Vice-President, A&R of Columbia Records,[13][14] and then subsequently becoming A&R executive for Knowles' label imprint Parkwood Entertainment, overseeing song selection for her eponymous fifth album, Lemonade, and several other projects.[15][16][17][18][19][20]

Whites also operates several annual writing retreats for songwriters at The Arbor House Bed & Breakfast which she owns with her husband in Texas.[21][22][23]