The BIG Summit Speaker Biographies 

Susan Butler

Executive Editor/Publisher, Music Confidential

Susan Butler is a business journalist and publisher, former-practicing entertainment and technology attorney and published author. Through her Butler Business & Media LLC, she writes and publishes the weekly international news and analysis report Music Confidential and produces a few select private executive summits. Many CEOs and government officials call Susan “the most influential commentator” and “the most knowledgeable expert on music matters in our industry” and refer to Music Confidential as “the holy grail of music [business] resources,” which quickly became “the point of reference” for executives and government officials and advisors in 48 countries. After practicing law for 21 years, she began reporting and writing full-time, achieving a number of “firsts” for an entertainment industry business journalist including acquiring confidential financial information on multi-billion-dollar acquisitions and confidential antitrust decisions; securing exclusive in-person interviews with high-level government officials including U.S. Attorneys General, Chinese Chief of Ministry of Culture (Audio and Video), French government officials, White House officials and a European Commissioner; joining New York Police Department undercover detectives and MPAA and RIAA investigators on a bust of an illegal CD and DVD replication facility. During Susan’s legal career, she served as an elected member of the boards of The Recording Academy (the Grammy Award organisation) Los Angeles and New York Chapters, and her legal clients included individuals and companies in the music, film, TV and tech fields internationally.

Dan Simpson

Head of Label Operations, Meta

Dan Simpson is the Head of Label Operations at Meta where he leads the global team that runs the systems, processes and operational partnerships with music distributors that ensure the world’s catalog of recorded music is available for use on Facebook and Instagram. Dan is also Meta’s representative on DDEX’s board.

Prior to Meta, Dan spent four years at SoundCloud in Berlin and London where he formed and led their content operations team during a period of significant change and growth as it pivoted to ad-supported streaming and listener monetization.

Dan started his career in music operations at Sony where he spent nine years in various roles across SonyBMG, Sony Music and Sony DADC.

Scott Ambrose Reilly

SVP of Content, The Orchard

Scott Ambrose Reilly is a music industry veteran who has made significant contributions to the development of the digital music business. He began his career in the 1980s as Mojo Nixon’s road manager.

In 2000, Reilly helped launch the Digital Club Network, which webcast live music performances from 50 venues across the United States. He then moved on to work at eMusic, where he was responsible for content acquisition and operations before joining Amazon in 2006.

At Amazon, Reilly played a key role in launching their digital music business in the US, UK, Germany and France. He was responsible for content acquisition and operations, ensuring that the music library was comprehensive and accessible to customers.

After a brief stint working on Amazon periodicals, Reilly returned to the music industry as the North America CEO for X5, a Swedish digital music company that became the second-largest classical label in the download era.

In 2014, Reilly joined The Orchard, a global music distribution and services company. He currently runs content operations and is responsible for ensuring that the company’s library of music is up-to-date, comprehensive, and accessible to customers around the world.

Throughout his career, Reilly has been a visionary in the music industry, always pushing the envelope and exploring new ways to connect artists with their fans. His contributions to the digital music landscape have been significant and continue to shape the industry today.

Chris Sumner

Music Label & Product Business Development, Meta

As Director, Music Label & Product BD at Meta, Chris Sumner is responsible for leading global licensing with music labels around the world and for working with Meta’s product and engineering teams across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Reality Labs to develop new technology products anchored around music that build community and bring the world closer together.

Prior to Meta, Chris held senior business development and strategy leadership positions at Refinery29, Live Nation, Sony Music and EMI Music. He began his career at McKinsey & Co. and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and MA from Oxford University.

Chris lives in Venice, California with his wife, two young children and overenthusiastic dog, Churro.

Ben Markowitz

Director of Music Data & Rights Management, TikTok/Bytedance

Ben currently leads Music Data & Rights Management at TikTok/ByteDance. Prior to this, he led content operations teams at Netflix, YouTube and The Orchard. He’s also an accomplished bassist and vinyl record collector.

Phil Sant

Co-Founder of Salt & Session

Phil is responsible for product vision and tech strategy at Salt, the SaaS back-office that allows music societies and rightsholders to maximise the value of their musical repertoire in the global market enabling greater, faster royalty payments with total transparency. A serial technology entrepreneur and prolific builder of cloud platforms since the early 90s, Phil’s first major interest, Cromwell Media, reversed onto FTSE listed InterX plc in March 2000. In 2003, Phil founded Omnifone, the digital music pioneer sold to Apple. Omnifone’s cloud-native music platform hosted 60m tracks from rightsholders globally and powered services from Sony, Samsung, Vodafone, SiriusXM and Spotify. Over the last 14 years, Phil has amassed an unrivalled understanding of the end-to-end workings of the digital media industry. Phil possesses the unique combination of expertise, passion and tenacity needed to enact and navigate the music industry’s transformation into an accurate, fast paying, fully-monetised, transparent, rightsholder-centric industry.

Matt Waters

Co-Founder & CEO, Unchained Music

Matt Waters serves as the visionary Co-Founder and CEO of the pioneering Web3 music platform, Unchained Music (UnchainedMusic.io). As Co-Chair of DDEX’s Web3 and NFT Working Group, Matt additionally educates and champions the adoption of blockchain technology to streamline the complexities and major pain points of the music industry.

Boasting an international career, Matt has performed and mentored across four continents. In China, he held the titles of Professor of Low Brass and Co-Director of Bands at the Nanhai Conservatory of Music, alongside various educational roles prior in Southern California. Before his relocation to Asia, Matt thrived as a sought-after freelance musician and educator in the vibrant musical scenes within Los Angeles and San Diego.

Matt’s relentless dedication to the world of music is evident in his diverse career, which encompasses performing, recording, education, and fostering innovation in music technology.

Peter de Mönnink

CEO, ICE Services

Peter was appointed as the CEO of ICE, the world’s first integrated processing hub, in March 2022. Within this short period, Peter has forged a strong passion for improving the industry-affecting inefficiencies within the royalty value chain. During his first year at ICE, he has focused on refining and focusing the business strategy, with enhanced customer intimacy and increased operational excellence at the core of the thinking.

Whilst relatively new to the Music Industry, Peter is a media executive with a wealth of experience in running large media organisations in many roles over the past decades: he was Chief Strategy Officer for the global professional publishing company Reed Business Information, and CEO for multiple countries; CEO for Sanoma in Holland and Belgium; and also CEO of the Dutch media company Talpa Network. Peter has a proven track record of delivering new online products and services, and oversaw a diverse range of audio, video, radio, television, E-commerce, and online/magazine services.

When he was introduced to ICE, Peter said: “Nothing has proven more engaging than music in our digital lives. At the same time, the transition of content-rights and their value to the ever-expanding footprint of global digital markets is an ongoing challenge. ICE is a unique company. Founded with the purpose of ensuring that the fast-growing consumption of music is also reflected in value for content-creators and all stakeholders involved. Shared data processing and distribution are at the core of ICE, with the goal to protect and preserve the value of music.”

Nigel Elderton

European President, Peermusic

Nigel began his career in music publishing joining Chappell Music in 1975 before moving to EMI Music Publishing a year later.

During the following 12 years, Nigel worked across various departments from Finance, Radio Promotion, Professional Manager and A&R. In 1982 he launched EMI’s New Business Development Division which established the first dedicated TV, Film and Advertising Synch Licencing department in UK publishing. This initiative proved to be extremely successful and spawned many award-winning ad campaigns and numerous hit records.

Following this success Nigel was offered the opportunity to create MCA Music’s synch licencing team and the following year he was approached by Lucian Grainge to launch a similar department for Polygram Music working with both the catalogue and contemporary roster.

Two years later Nigel accepted an offer from Ralph Peer, owner and CEO of Peermusic, to take over as Managing Director of the UK company. In 2010 he was appointed European President and continues in this role today.

Nigel has been fortunate throughout his career to have worked with some of the world’s most successful songwriters, composers and music catalogues.