Tuesday, April 28th, 2015

The MusicNext Forum Track: Marina Vista Room

10:45 AM – Noon, Live Webcast from this Room

Moneyball, Music & Commerce – Digging into the Stats: What Facebook, Mobile Technology, YouTube, Spotify, Twitter, Pandora, Rdio, Social Media, Charting & other Stats Mean

Marc Ruxin, CMO. Rdio

Jason Feinberg, Head of Artist Marketing, Pandora

Ethan Kaplan, General Manager of Music, Gracenote

Michael Drexler, Executive Director, Business Development, Digital Licensing & Strategic Development, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)

Cheryl Lucanegro, Vice President of Advertising Strategy and Sales, SoundHound

Dean Serletic, Head of Marketing and Licensing, Zya, Moderator

building virtual collections of the artists they love, and connect with like-minded music fans. TastemakerX launched in June 2012 and became one of the first platforms to leverage a game mechanic to surface real time musical trends.  Prior to founding TastemakerX, Marc was the Chief Innovation Officer at UniversalMcCann and McCannErikson. Prior to this Marc was chief operating officer of The Mill Group and Beam.tv, VP of business development at iVast, and Eveo, inc. Marc also worked for WPP Group, as an MBA Marketing Fellow and started his career in A&R at EMI Records. Marc sits on the Boards and Advisory Boards of numerous internet and technology start-ups and is on the BoD of the San Francisco Film Society. Marc has a BA from Hamilton College and an MBA from Columbia Business School, and lives in San Francisco with his wife and three children. Marc blogs about music and film at www.snoozebutton.com and the Huffington Post.

Jason Feinberg is Head of Artist Marketing at Pandora, where he develops and markets products for the artist community. His most recent focus is on Insights, an analytics tool Pandora launched as part of their Artist Marketing Platform (AMP).  Previously Jason spent almost 15 years on staff or consulting to record labels as a digital strategist and marketer. Most recently he was VP, Digital Strategy for Epitaph/Anti records, where he focused on social and interactive marketing, product development, analytics/reporting, and digital revenue strategy for artists including Bad Religion, Social Distortion, Rancid, Tom Waits, Neko Case, and Wilco.

Ethan Kaplan, General Manager, Music, Gracenote: Ethan Kaplan is the SVP and General Manager for Gracenote Music, where he sets the strategic direction for the company’s Music business, develops next gen music solutions and works with Gracenote customers to integrate products into emerging music platforms and services. Ethan brings to Gracenote more than two decades of music tech experience, having launched the first official R.E.M. fan site at the age of 16, helped Warner Bros. Records and Warner Music Group unlock the value of new technologies for the label, artists and fans and later led the product innovation team at Live Nation, the world’s leading live music company, as they looked to reinvent the live music experience for concertgoers.

Michael Drexler, Executive Director, Business Development, Digital Licensing & Strategic Development, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI): Michael oversees BMI’s Digital Licensing business development while managing efforts to open up new revenue streams for songwriters, composers and publishers in the digital world.  He leads negotiations with top tier digital media clients and serves on key committees handling new products and services. In his previous roles as Senior Director of Corporate Development and Strategy at Sony Music and Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Global Digital Business), Michael managed the evaluation of new business opportunities, investments and JVs and negotiated content and equity purchase agreements in new digital environments.  Michael also led and supported new customer-facing digital service launches.  In addition to his 10+ years of experience as a digital media executive, Drexler is also an accomplished keyboardist and a two-time GRAMMY® nominated audio engineer and music producer.  Michael received his MBA from Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business in New York and holds an M.A. in Music Production (Diplom-Tonmeister) from the Hochschule für Musik Detmold (Germany). To add to his credentials, Drexler graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston with a Professional Diploma in Jazz Piano Performance.

Cheryl Lucanegro, Vice President, Advertising Strategy and Sales, Soundhound: Cheryl Lucanegro leads SoundHound’s advertising sales and mobile marketing strategy efforts.  She joined SoundHound in March 2012 and created the advertising model for the company. Cheryl is responsible for the SoundHound’s advertising organization, including the recruiting of top talent, and the development of innovative and interactive advertising solutions that allow brands and marketers to leverage SoundHound’s robust mobile sound search and discovery platform. SoundHound has a growing user base of more than 250 million worldwide.  Prior to joining SoundHound, Cheryl served as Senior Vice President of Sales at Pandora, the popular Internet music service, from 2005 through its initial public offering and into January 2012. At Pandora, Cheryl successfully created and executed the company’s advertising model while managing its advertising sales team.  Cheryl’s previous sales and management experience includes senior positions held at Salon Media Group, Industry Standard, Upside Magazine and Ziff Davis Publishing Company. She was also the founding publisher for Edutopia, the educational website that is part of George Lucas Educational Foundation. Cheryl was a recipient of Mobile Marketer’s Mobile Women to Watch in 2010, celebrating smart women who make a difference in mobile advertising, marketing and media. Cheryl has a BS degree in journalism from the University of Florida.

Dean Serletic, Head of Marketing and Licensing, Zya:  Dean Serletic serves as the head of marketing and licensing at Zya, a company founded to democratize music creation and expression through interactive games and apps.  In his role, Dean oversees all corporate and product marketing campaigns, manages strategic partnerships, and handles licensing arrangements with music and technology partners. The first addition to Zya’s executive team, he spearheaded the creation of first-of-a-kind create and share licensing deals with all three major music companies.  Over the course of a 20-year career in the music industry, Dean has held positions in artist management, A&R, music publishing, and executive label management. Dean got his start in the music business when he discovered Matchbox Twenty, helping them achieve breakthrough success and sell 15 million copies of their debut album.