Music Recognition Technology Summit Speaker Biographies
Mark Douglas
Chief Information Officer, PPL
As a member of PPL’s Executive Management team, Mark is responsible for all aspects of PPL’s technology and data infrastructure. He leads a team of around 50 IT and data professionals developing and maintaining PPL’s technology systems. Outside PPL’s core systems, Mark has played a key role in a range of critical industry initiatives including RDx, the recording repertoire data exchange, and VRDB the SCAPR database to improve the flow of cross border payments between performer collecting societies. Mark is also a member of the DDEX Board.
Prior to joining PPL in 2011, Mark was a partner in the technology consulting practice at Deloitte where he served a broad range of media clients across TV, music and film. Prior to that, he was the head of Commercial Systems Development at Sky Television and was part of the team that launched pay-per-view and Digital TV services in the UK. As a Chartered Accountant and Computer Science graduate, Mark draws on a broad range of business and technology experience. Mark has recently become a regular contributor to Music Business Worldwide’s UK print magazine, where he comments on data and technology matters within the music industry.
Yuri Dokter
Founder, DJ Monitor
Yuri Dokter has worked in music since 1988 ranging from an artist signed by international labels and publishers, label management, music publishing, event production, and innovative online music concepts with Pulse Interactive (Nasdaq: XCED)
In 2005, Yuri founded DJ Monitor, which specialises in monitoring live music performances through its own algorithms, database, and hardware, effectively pioneering club- & festival monitoring around the globe. In 2022 AlphaTheta Company (PioneerDJ) acquired a strategic stake in DJ Monitor to jointly develop new technologies, products, and services. Clients and partners include CMOs such as BUMA, SENA, PRS for Music, PPL, SACEM, ASCAP, SABAM, APRA, GRAMEX, music users such as Tomorrowland, Parookaville, i:Motion, NTIA, VVEM and DSPs and media such as Billboard, Twitch and Pioneer DJ.
Spanning the globe, Yuri consults on music rights monitoring and technology through DJ Monitor and as a co-chairperson of the CMO workgroup for the Association of Electronic Music, by providing solutions to ensure fair and transparent tariffs and distribution.
Mark Vermaat
VP of Business Strategy & Partnerships, Orfium
Orfium is the global technology company solving the entertainment industry’s most complex challenges around cue sheets, digital and broadcast rights management, and reporting. Having joined Orfium in January 2023 when it acquired Soundmouse (now Soundmouse by Orfium), where he was responsible for business and product development, Mark is responsible for growing Orfium’s business by identifying new revenue opportunities and executing strategic initiatives, as well as customer and stakeholder management and supporting the business development team. He also manages the Music Partners team, engaging with music publishers, record labels and production libraries that Orfium works with, to maximise the revenue they receive from the use of their music in user-generated content and across all forms of broadcast.
Carrying a breadth of experience in music licensing and industry-wide data exchange, Mark was formerly Head of Music at Endemol International, responsible for the licensing of music for the multi-platform entertainment content produced and distributed by the company, and sat on the board of the UK AV registration agency between 2009 and 2016, the hub for the collection and exchange of data identifications of film and TV productions.
Alex Batterbee
Senior Director Global Administration, Sony Music Publishing
Alex has been in music publishing administration for over 30 years working at PolyGram, Universal, Music Sales and latterly at Sony Music Publishing, as well as a stint on the other side of the fence at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and consulting for various companies. He is the co-chair of the Society Publisher Forum, which, with the support of CISAC and ICMP amongst others, brings together administrators and technical staff from collection societies and publisher to work on common standard, practices and processes. These include the Common Works Registration (CWR), Common Agreement Registration (CAF), Common Royalty Distribution (CRD) formats and the International Standard Cue Sheet. He’s a keen advocate for working together to further the interest of writers by better servicing the publisher’s licensees and hence identifying income by matching works to usages.
Richard Thompson
Chief Technology Office, The Mechanical Licensing Collective
Richard has been involved with The MLC since shortly after the Music Modernization Act (MMA) was passed in 2018. Charged with delivering the technological components of The MLC’s functions within the challenging timelines set out in the MMA, Richard has been instrumental in The MLC’s journey from new start-up through to industry-leading CMO, with over $1.5b dollars in royalties distributed to rightsholders in only two and a half years of operation.
Before his time at The MLC, Richard was CTO of Kobalt Music Group from 2001 to 2018. Richard chaired the DDEX Board from 2017-2019, having been a Board Director for 9 years.
Nan Wilson
Oracle, MAM bmat
Nan started Manage Ad Music in 2000 with a vision to merge the primary facets of advertising music and royalty collection. Years of ad experience with agencies, music production and media buying had revealed to her new, more efficient methods for collecting music royalties not yet pursued within the industry. BMAT acquired MAM in 2021 to bring together the use of music recognition technology and sync royalty administration services. Nan’s mission is to educate and advocate for new possibilities in the music royalty arena around the world.
Jens Kindermann
Head of Products Department – GEMA
Jens has been with GEMA since 1996 and heads the Products Department, which is responsible for the documentation of audiovisual productions. He is also in charge of the GEMA Soundfile Upload, which enables GEMA members to upload the soundfiles of their musical works to GEMA and make them available for music recognition. As an expert in audio monitoring, he is involved in various activities related to the recognition of music on television, radio, clubs and the Internet.
Tuomas Talonpoika
Head of Rightsholder Unit, Gramex Finland
Tuomas started his career in the collective management of neighbouring rights as a copyright lawyer in 2000. Before this, he was, among other things, a member of the Finnish Bar Association. During more than two decades at Gramex Finland, Tuomas has been responsible not only for legal matters, but also for the licensing and management of neighbouring rights and royalty distributions. Tuomas has also worked in the international environment and during the last few years focused on improvement in business processes and good governance in the copyright organisation’s internal and external operations.
In these context, Tuomas has been responsible for the international IT and management systems procurement projects, participated in phonograms’ metadata projects and in many international industry working groups. In his free time, Tuomas enjoys, in addition to actively listening to music, breeding racehorses.
Abbie Triggs
Director of Operations and Business Development, On Music Ltd.
On Music Ltd is the leading provider of back office administration services for organisations in the media industry. Over the past 18 years, Abbie has worked with the world’s largest performance rights organisations, television broadcasters and music publishers to establish best in class standards for metadata relating to copyright and royalty administration.
Most recently, she was appointed to the Belfast Region Music Board to help bring to life Belfast’s UNESCO City of Music designation. She is passionate about educating creatives on leveraging the power of data to ensure copyright owners are fairly remunerated for the use of their intellectual property.
Gary Hofstetter
Product Manager, Warner Music Group
Gary oversees product strategy & development of the systems and processes responsible for delivering WMG’s wholly-owned and distributed catalog to digital service providers. Gary works hand-in-hand with label, business development and operations teams, understanding their operational & technical needs while delivering solutions through world-class software that drives business forward.
Gary started his career at Sony Music Studios in New York in 2006 as an assistant engineer, later moving into Media Production where he oversaw Sony Music’s audio & video QC teams. In 2013, he joined Sony DADC’s Product Management team, focused on developing and onboarding WMG to DADC’s supply chain which culminated in 2016, when WMG brought the digital supply chain back in-house.
Gary’s professional journey encompasses a blend of in-depth industry knowledge and a passion for leveraging cutting-edge digital tools ensuring a products life cycle, starting in the studio and ending in the digital marketplace, is as efficient and streamlined as possible. He is currently based in Nashville, Tennessee.
Johnny Booth
Senior Vice President Finance & Planning, Vevo
Johnny oversees all areas of finance and accounting for Vevo. He is based out of Vevo’s Los Angeles office and has worked at the company since its launch in 2009. Prior to Vevo, Johnny served accounting roles at Deloitte, Helio and Oversee.net. He received his CPA license in the state of California, and holds an MBA from UC Irvine and a BA in Business Economics from UC Santa Barbara.
Conrad Capalbo
Director of Product for Content Technologies, Sony Music Entertainment
Conrad brings over a decade of experience in building digital products at the crossroads of technology and music. He oversees the tools that empower artists, their teams, and labels in the distribution and collection of their musical work. While at Sony Music and his prior role at The Orchard, Conrad leads teams in leveraging innovative approaches to using audio fingerprinting, modernizing digital, physical and video distribution, and contributing to the development of a music knowledge graph. Beyond his professional endeavours, Conrad is a musician who also runs a small label and recording studio.
Matt Phipps-Taylor
Chief Information Officer, peermusic
Matt oversees the technology and data platforms used across peermusic’s global network of music publishing and neighbouring rights companies operating from 39 offices in 32 countries.
Before joining peermusic, Matt was Chief Data Officer at UK neighbouring rights CMO PPL, where he led PPL’s involvement in various global industry data initiatives and partnerships. Matt also served on the board of DDEX, and contributed to the creation of new data standards for the neighbouring rights sector. Prior to that, Matt worked at Deloitte Consulting in the UK and US, delivering major technology and data programmes for a variety of clients across the music and entertainment industries.
Peermusic was founded by Ralph S. Peer in 1928, and is the world’s largest global independent music publishing and neighbouring rights administration company. With well over a million titles owned or administered by the company, and with a neighbouring rights roster encompassing over 350 record labels and more than 3,000 performers, peermusic is the largest privately owned company of its kind in the world.
Sebastian Posth
International Standard Content Code Foundation
Sebastian is an entrepreneur and consultant, specialising on digital innovation projects within the creative sector. With a history in digital distribution at arvato (Bertelsmann) and Zebralution, Sebastian co-initiated the International Standard Content Code (ISCC). In a voluntary position, he is the founder and member of the ISCC Foundation’s board of directors, and the convenor of ISO/CD 24138 (ISCC). Sebastian is founder of Liccium.com and the initiator of the EU-funded CreatorCredentials.com project.
Pascale Giovetti
Head of Digital Supply Chain, Beggars Group
Pascale was a sound engineer/producer for many years working with top artists before turning to the business side, first by starting her own label, and then working for PRS for Music for four years, followed by Universal as Digital Account Manager for five years.
Pascale joined Beggars Group in 2017 and is now Head of Digital Supply Chain. Having been a representative for member companies of DDEX since 2008, and an active participant to the various DDEX Working Groups, Pascale is keenly aware of the challenges that the digital supply chain is currently facing when it comes to the importance and the quality of the data being exchanged by the diverse group of stakeholders, whether they are record labels, digital retailers or collecting societies.
Sara Jackson
Music Content Operations Publishing Lead, Meta
Sara leads the management of a wide range of music publishers’ operational needs for Facebook and Instagram with a focus on data quality and systems management for Meta’s North American partners. Prior to joining Meta, Sara led the US Administration team at Kobalt Music Publishing overseeing the licensing and data management of Kobalt’s US repertoire. With her background in publishing and over 17 years of experience in the music industry her main interest lies in how to better serve music and copyright management in the ever-evolving tech landscape.
Chelsea Johnson
Senior Director of Global Digital Business – Kobalt Music Publishing
Chelsea oversees the operations of Digital Partnerships both internally and externally as well as the administration of Kobalt’s mechanical licensing activities in the US. With a natural curiosity towards new media, Chelsea has gathered a keen understanding of new digital platforms and the impact of operations at a music publishing level. Being a performing artist herself, she previously managed the Iridium Jazz Club in Times Square, New York and worked at BMG as a consultant for catalogue acquisitions.
Andrew DeWitt
Product Management, Customer Solutions and Content Operations Lead, Audible Magic
Andrew has over 17 years of experience working in business, technology, and creative roles within the music and media industries. He provides music rights management solutions to digital platforms through industry-leading automatic content recognition, music delivery, rights clearance and reporting services. Prior to Audible Magic, Andrew worked on the ground-breaking mobile music services at the Earthlink and SK Telecom joint venture Helio, and managed those services through acquisitions by Virgin Mobile and Sprint. He was a founding member and General Manager of several music production and licensing businesses servicing the film and television markets, working exclusively with companies like Universal Music Publishing, Sony Music Publishing, and APM Music for global distribution. He also worked as a custom score producer for film and television, collaborating with Oscar and Emmy-winning directors on projects for Netflix, HBO, PBS, Fox and more, earning two Emmy nominations of his own. Andrew holds a BS in Music Industry from the University of Southern California.
Ben Markowitz
Music Data & Rights Management, Bytedance
Ben Markowitz was the original operations hire for TikTok/Bytedance in 2018 and has built out the teams responsible for managing content ingestion, data and reporting, rights management, and publishing operations. Prior to this, he led content operations teams at Netflix, YouTube, and The Orchard. In his spare time, you’ll find him hanging out with his family, working through jazz bass transcriptions, and crate digging at record stores.