Ed Averdieck | Director, Real World

Ed Averdieck is a director of Real World, where he manages the recorded music and music publishing businesses. Real World Records was founded by WOMAD and Peter Gabriel to provide talented artists from throughout the world with access to state-of-the-art recording facilities and audiences beyond their geographical base.  Prior to Real World, Ed was part of the management team that started OD2 back in 2000 and then became managing director of Nokia Music when Nokia acquired the business in 2006.

Billy Bragg | Musician

Since he began his career as a solo singer-songwriter in 1983, all of Billy Bragg’s record deals have included a clause which sees the ownership of his work revert to him after a set period of time. A renowned political activist, Billy has recently begun speaking out in support of artists’ rights in the digital age. In 2006, he took on MySpace over the proprietary rights clause in their terms and conditions and won.

For those of you who enjoy conspiracy theories, Billy is managed by Peter Jenner.

David Courtier-Dutton | CEO, Slicethepie

David Courtier-Dutton founded Slicethepie in late 2005 with the aim of creating a user-driven filter and flexible financing engine for the music industry.  The site launched in June 2007, and Wired recently named it as one of the 10 hottest music sites on the planet. In its first year of operation, Slicethepie users have financed more than 20 of the 10,000 artists who have joined the site.

Prior to Slicethepie, David worked as a lawyer, a corporate financier, a property developer and as strategic development director of Infobank, a publicly quoted software development company that rode the internet boom of the late 1990s, reaching a peak market capitalization of $5 billion. 

Ben Drury | CEO, 7digital

Ben began his career in 1996 as a founder of dotmusic.com, an internal venture at United News and Media. Dotmusic quickly became a leading online music destination attracting over 1.8 million unique users per month in 1999.

In 2000 Ben was headhunted by BT Group to head up the broadband music efforts at their ISP BT Openworld. As Head of Music at BT, Ben successfully launched a major music channel before leading the acquisition of his old company dotmusic in 2002. Following the partnership between BT and Yahoo! to form BT Yahoo, Ben engineered the sale of dotmusic to Yahoo and founded 7digital with James Kane in 2004. Ben was named by Growing Business magazine as a “Young Gun 2006”—the award for leading entrepreneurs under 35 and in 2007—and 7digital was awarded the prestigious Red Herring award Top 100 Europe Award as one of the most promising technology companies in Europe.

Tom Erskine | Head of Go To Market, Nokia Music

Tom Erskine is responsible for launching and rolling out Nokia Music Store and Comes With Music into new markets. Prior to Nokia, Tom worked for MTV Networks, developing their digital business in the areas of mobile TV and mobile games. Outside work Tom enjoys travel, live music and watching Tottenham Hotspur.

Angel Gambino | Social Entrepreneur; former Global VP, Music and Content, Bebo; Moderator

Angel Gambino is a social entrepreneur and the former global VP, music & content at Bebo, where she was responsible for its global music strategy, product and partnerships. She joined the company from her previous position as VP, commercial, strategy and digital media for Viacom UK, Ireland & Nordic, where she was responsible for MTVN’s business strategy and development.

Prior to MTVN, Angel was at the BBC, where she held the position of controller, business development and emerging platforms. Angel has spoken at a variety of industry conferences, events and working groups, including Midem, SXSW, London Calling, MIP and The Edinburgh TV Festival, and has been interviewed by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and The Telegraph. Angel is also a columnist for New Media Age.

Ian Henderson | VP Digital Business EMEA, Sony BMG

Ian Henderson works at Sony BMG to drive the development of digital business revenues in the European Region. His focus is on content licensing and distribution deals with new and existing partners. He is also involved in Pan-European direct-to-consumer service development.

Previously, Ian worked at IPWireless where he served as director of business development. At IPWireless, Ian managed the strategic relationship with Vodafone and focused on the development of next generation mobile network technologies. Prior to IPWireless, Ian served as head of music product development at Orange UK and Orange Group. He has also worked for Universal Music in technology strategy and started his career as an artist manager with Mark Shimmel Management in Los Angeles. Ian has an MBA from Harvard Business School

David Hyman | CEO, Mog

David Hyman founded Mog—one of the first online communities built exclusively for music lovers—in June 2005. David is a veteran entrepreneur, digital music pioneer and self-proclaimed music freak who has held key executive positions at Gracenote, MTV and Addicted to Noise. MOG has been funded to date by angel investors and is headquartered in Berkeley, Calif.

Spencer Hyman | COO, Last.fm

Spencer Hyman is COO of Last.fm. Spencer joined Last.fm from Amazon at the beginning of 2006, and steered the company through its $280 million acquisition by CBS in 2007. He masterminds Last.fm’s global business, e-commerce and advertising deals— which includes partnerships with Apple, AOL and Motorola—helping the social network grow into a robust and innovative online music company.

Eric Johnson | President and COO, Wolfgang’s Vault

Eric Johnson is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of Wolfgang’s Vault, an online destination for live music.  He also acts as the publisher of Crawdaddy, a weekly online magazine dedicated to providing a literate look at music and its influence on society. 

Prior to joining Wolfgang’s Vault, Eric was an investment banker for 11 years with JPMorgan and Hambrecht & Quist. In his two years as president and COO of Wolfgang’s Vault, he has directed the company’s expansion to multiple archives, the majority stakes acquisition of Daytrotter and has worked closely with artists and executives from the music industry to reinvigorate the music fan experience.

Tom McLennan | Head of Music - Mobile Internet and Content Services, Vodafone UK

From a telecommunications background, Tom McLennan has worked for Vodafone UK for the last six years in many facets of the business. He is currently responsible for Vodafone UK’s music products and was responsible for the launch of MusicStation. In the industry, he’s interested in new commercial models and in particular what subscription-based services might offer operators and labels.

Mark Mulligan | VP & Research Director, JupiterResearch; Moderator

As a VP and research director, Mark Mulligan leads JupiterResearch’s European research services and data coverage. Mark additionally covers the European online content market with a particular focus on the digital distribution of music. He also helped launch the European Country Focus service and the European Digital Home service.

Mark regularly appears on TV, radio and in the press commenting on the European music market, including BBC television and radio, CNN, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal Europe, Business Week and The Guardian. Prior to joining JupiterResearch, he worked as a statistical database manager for Euromonitor. Mark is also a recording artist.

Erik Nielsen | Managing Director, Intact Records / Racket Records

Erik Nielsen heads Intact Records—the business arm of Marillion’s Internet empire. After joining them as road crew on their U.S. tour in late 1997 and finding a common (and at the time unique) interest in using the Internet for both communicating direct with fans and international commerce, Erik emigrated to the UK to design and launch Marillion’s first official website and online store in late 1997.

After shaking off record company shackles in 2000 with the now much-copied “pre-order” concept, Marillion’s website has grown from a simple information source into its own cottage industry, which now includes private recording studios and offices, the online store Racket Records, and indie label Intact Records—the “360-degree” business model before it was a buzzword.

Erik is also available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals.

Steve Purdham | CEO and Founder Investor, We7

Steve is CEO and founder investor in We7, the new ad funded Music phenomenon. He has a passion for music, but apart from early days as a DJ, his real success to date has been in the computer industry, an industry he has been in since age 14 (when PC’s were science fiction).  Prior to We7, Steve was Co-Founder and CEO of SurfControl, where he developed the company’s vision and architecture. He took the company public on AIM, EASDAQ and the London Main market from which he generated hyper-growth creating a successful global operation with profitable revenues exceeding $100m. SurfControl was sold for almost $450m in 2007. Steve has been recognized by many prestigious business awards including IOD director of the Year.

Danny Rimer | Partner, Index Ventures

Danny Rimer joined Index Ventures in 2002 and established the firm’s London office. His investment interests include Internet infrastructure software and services.

He currently serves on a number of boards including AstleyClarke, FON, Joost, Maggies Cancer Caring, Oanda, Sky (BSY), Spot Runner, Stardoll, Trialpay, Viagogo and Woome. He previously was a director of KVS (Symantec), Last.fm (CBS), Lovefilm, MySQL (Sun), Neoteris (Juniper) and Skype (eBay). Prior to joining Index, Danny was a general partner of The Barksdale Group. Prior to joining The Barksdale Group, Danny was managing director in Hambrecht & Quist’s (JP Morgan) Equity Research Group and was responsible for the firm’s Internet practice. 

Thorsten Schliesche | VP, Sales and Marketing, Europe, GM and VP, Germany, Napster

As head of Napster Europe’s sales and marketing, as well as the company’s head of operations for Germany, Thorsten is responsible for development and execution of marketing, branding, and business-development strategies locally and throughout the continent.

Before he joined the company, Thorsten focused on digital distribution and music as leading manager at T-Online International.  In that position, Thorsten was responsible for the development and operations of Musicload, which lead the market as the first competitive digital music download portal in Germany. Prior to T-Online, Thorsten built and managed Viatel’s market research and market analysis department as its European research manager.

Marla Shapiro | Business Development Director, Broadcast and Online, The MCPS-PRS Alliance

As a director at the MCPS-PRS Alliance (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society - Performing Right Society), Marla Shapiro is responsible for creating and maintaining standard licensing approaches for the broadcast and online markets, with a particular emphasis on analyzing new digital business models.

Marla formerly worked for the Financial Times as the director for business development for FT.com – U.S. There she led efforts to form strategic partnerships to drive online revenue and support the growth of the FT brand in the U.S. Before working directly in the media sector, Marla worked for a number of years in London and New York as a banker at National Westminster Bank and JPMorgan in a variety of structured finance roles. 

Geoff Taylor | Chief Executive, The BPI (Keynote)

Geoff Taylor is chief executive of the BPI, a governor of the BRIT School for the Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, a director of the UK Official Charts Company and a trustee of the UK Record Industry’s charity, The BRIT Trust.

Geoff joined BPI in 2004 as general counsel. Shortly thereafter, he was general counsel and EVP of IFPI, having previously held various legal positions with the company. There, he oversaw litigation, licensing and anti-piracy matters.

Johan Vosmeijer | CEO, SellaBand

Johan Vosmeijer is an experienced professional in the European music scene. He ran the legendary labels Epic and Columbia for Sony Music in the Benelux, and most recently he was the driving force behind the launch of Red Ink, a boutique label for Sony BMG. After a lifetime in the traditional music business, he thought the time was right for change. At that point he met Pim Betist, a man with a plan and a mission. The plan was SellaBand and the mission was to change the music world.

Julian Zmood | Head of Business Development, Music, O2

Julian Zmood is responsible for developing new businesses based on music throughout the O2 Group (Telefonica Europe). His focus is on structuring new services and creating innovative partnerships with artists and rights’ holders. Prior to O2, Julian worked as a consultant to a range of media companies and, earlier still, headed-up filmed entertainment and business development functions for the Orange Group. Julian originally worked and trained as a lawyer in Australia.