Wednesday, October 22nd

2:15 PM - 3:30 PM

Track V: Poolside Tent II

Music Branding and Commerce: from Apps to Live Events

Robert (Leo) Rodgers, MBA, Sr. VP & Label Liaison, Bungalo Records

Wade Lagrone, Founder and CEO, RABBL

Colin Jeffery, Chief Creative Officer, David&Goliath

Eric Foster White, CEO & Founder, ShowMobile

Anthony Manzo, CTO, Wedshare

Ty Roberts, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Gracenote

Adrian Sexton, ‎Chief Digital Officer, New Medici, Moderator

other brands. His work has been recognized at every major industry award show, including Cannes, D&AD, The One Show, CLIOs, and The Effies, and in 2012, Business Insider ranked Colin #11 on its “25 Most Creative People in Advertising.”

Robert (Leo) Rodgers, Sr. VP & Label Liaison, Bungalo Records: - Mr. Rodgers has been in the music and entertainment business for 27 years, he executively produced his first album in 1985, and has either produced, or executively produced 7 more records/CD's from 1985-2004. In the mid 90's Mr. Rodgers was solely responsible for the licensing of one of his artist records to the U.K. that went to # 1 on the charts. He later licensed several other records that were subsequently place on the charts as well in Europe. He also attended film school in the mid eighties in order to produce his own music videos for his roster of artist. During his first year of film school he won an International Film award in the music video category from the Black Filmmakers Hall Of Fame Foundation in Oakland, Ca. In just one year later he was bestowed with “Local Video Producer of the Year” in 1989 by a local music video TV station in the SF Bay Area. He has worked in a film with Whoopie Goldberg in the mid-eighties and wrote, produced and directed his own short music montage short film that received raved reviews from a local PBS affiliate. He also directed a short film starring former 49ers Dwight Clark that aired during the S.F. 49ers vs. Denver Bronco's halftime game. In addition he directed a music video that featured several S.F. 49ers, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Mike Wilson and Ronnie Lott. Mr. Rodgers has worked with, toured with and worked in the studio with artist such as; Spaceship Earth (members of Parliament Funkadelics) MC Hammer, (formerly Hammer's road Mgr), Club Nouveau, Howard Hewlett, Bar-Kays, Rosie Gaines, Radio Personality Kevin Nash, 2Bigg MC and was credited as Tony Toni Tone's first Promotions Director, and assisted them in the early days with some co-management duties. Alone the way, Mr. Rodgers worked in the High Tech Telecommunications and Internet industry for over 17 years and founded an Internet Licensing Company entitled “Licensedeals.com, which specialized in the licensing of apparel brands and music licensing. In the early 90's Mr. Rodgers produced a syndicated music variety show entitled “Sounds by the Bay” which was a cross between “In Living Color” and “Star Search”, focused on highlighting un-discovered talent, alone with skits. The show was syndicated on the west coast by a PBS affiliate. In 1994 Mr. Rodgers became a little bored and collaborated with one of MC Hammer's costume designers, James Head and Mr. Thurston Bilal, a close friend and businessman/producer. They formed StreetSmartz LTD. A street wear/denim clothing line. They setup worldwide licensing for the “Sagwear denim line. They shipped nearly 2 million in sales during the 1995-1996 first production years, and had product placed in over 500 stores worldwide. Currently, Mr. Rodgers co-owns a new upcoming high-end sportswear clothing line (Debonair) with Designer Eric Fermon and MC Hammer. Currently Mr. Rodgers is the President, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Catalog License, LLC/Bringem Back Records, which is a music catalog licensing and record company that is distributed by Universal Music Group. Catalog License, LLC, has released over 13 CD's through Universal Music Group. Alone the way Mr. Rodgers managed to work his way into the boxing arena working as a manager and boxing promoter with “Richard Steele Promotions”. His current post is SVP & Label Liaison of Bungalo/Universal Music Grp.

Eric Foster White, CEO & Founder, ShowMobile:  White is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, record producer, musician, technologist and entrepreneur, credited with 70 million album sales worldwide and several chart-topping hit records. He developed the musical identity market strategies for many well-known pop, rock and R&B musical artists including Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Gloria Estefan, Jessica Simpson, Julio Iglesias and the Backstreet Boys.   While at Jive Records, White led the company’s transition into the digital age by introducing non-linear digital recording technologies into the company’s production workflow. This transformative change greatly increased product output and gave the company a meaningful competitive advantage.   Subsequent to his tenure at Jive, White was recruited by Sony Music to consult and advise on content development and the impact of disruptive technologies such as Napster, social media, and mobile.   White started and sold two successful music production and publishing companies, and is proficient in financial modeling, and media and entertainment business analysis.  White graduated with honors from the University of Miami with a BA in 1983.  Married with two children, Eric is an avid cyclist, runner and skier, a lifelong baseball fan, a voracious consumer of technology, social media, and business publications, and enjoys talking about the history and evolution of popular music and culture.

Anthony Manzo, CTO, Wedshare: A passionate creator with a love for timeless story, innovation and content that helps fuel the imagination. He is a writer, producer, entertainer, digital strategist, failed and successful entrepreneur.  Currently, CTO of Wedshare and partner at Brand Device - a digital solutions and design house; Anthony is a creative problem solver and innovative thinker.   As a professional musician for many years, he has worked with the likes of DMC of Run-DMC, BB. King and a caliber of Grammy nominated and winning producers like Tony Battaglia and Tony Maserati.  Following his music career, Anthony continued to inspire people through his work in marketing  and business strategy. Previously the director of entertainment for the Azuree Agency  and Founder of Makeitsocial, a privately sold company in late 2002.   In early 2014, Anthony sold his studio, put one suitcase in a Chevy Volt and drove from Florida to Santa Monica, CA to work with a global education company called General Assembly. At General Assembly, Anthony lead the partnerships and alliances division securing relationships with key brands while putting on an impressive roster of events. This caught the eye of Emmy winning executive producer David Beebe. Together the pair executed a 3 month consultancy based lab project that would eventually and exclusively make it's way to Marriott Global.

Wade Lagrone, CEO & Co-Founder, Rabbl:  Wade's from Mississippi, and has lived in one end or another of the Bay Area, practicing his swamp thing, since business school in Chicago. He's done or managed product development and/or marketing for E*TRADE; Yahoo! Finance; Tribe.net; Zopa, the world's first person-to-person lending platform; and ScanCafe, the leading photo scanning service. This is his first CEO gig, so be gentle.  Wade got a BA from Harvard College and was the 1996-98 Brunswick-Urbanek Scholar at Kellogg, where he got his MBA and practiced the piano in the morning when nobody had to listen. Also, true story: his Dad started a symphony.

Ty Roberts, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Gracenote:  Ty is tasked with developing long-term strategy and identifying new areas of growth for Gracenote. Ty co-founded Gracenote when his company ION merged with CDDB in the late 1990s. Prior to Gracenote, Ty produced the industry’s first interactive music experiences on CD for artists like Brian Eno and David Bowie. Connected to practically everyone in the business, from labels and artists to technologists, Ty is a frequent speaker at music and TV industry conferences and events.

Adrian Sexton is Co-Founder & CEO of New Medici LLC, a media strategy + lifestyle agency working with WPP, Sony Asia, 20th Century Fox, Groupon and Vevo, among others. Prior to New Medici, he was Executive Vice President at Participant Media, managing the pro-social company’s expansion into global media, marketing and distribution. He architected TakePart.com, Participant’s venture-backed social action network which in turn partnered with American Express. Sexton was a member of Participant’s executive committee, involving film greenlights and M&A investments including the $1B Summit Entertainment financing and $250M Abu Dhabi co-funding deals. In 2006, he co-founded TAG Strategic, a strategy agency with clients including Qualcomm, Sandisk and Lionsgate. From 2000-2006, he headed Lionsgate’s digital division, managing its 8,500 title library. Lionsgate’s market cap rose from $60 million to $1.2 billion during his tenure; and he was part of the corporate team which secured the $350 million credit facility to acquire Artisan Entertainment. Sexton was New Media Director at MediaPact, a $500 million media management and capital firm which invested and took over management of Lionsgate.

Internet Summit - Branding Day