pencl labs

Leo Ferrante: Leo Ferrante is currently Director Of Licensing, East Coast for Warner Music Group. In this role, Leo is responsible for overseeing the processing of licenses, royalties, new media clearances and statements for Atlantic/Elektra, Bad Boy Records Worldwide, Fueled By Ramen, Photo Finish Records and a host of other indie joint-venture deals. Prior to this, Leo served as Senior Manager of Copyright Royalties for Interscope/Geffen/A&M at Universal Music Group, where he led the team responsible for licensing, new media and statements to a roster of artists that includes Eminem, 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas, Rise Against, Maroon 5 and A.F.I. Leo routinely consults on royalties and audits for Hopeless/Sub City Records, Downloadpunk.com, and Black & Greene Records. He has also worked with CMH, Crosscheck Records, and Vitamin Records as well as serving business development roles for Tarantulas Records and Black & Greene Records. Leo also gives a hand to several independent bands, management firms and labels across the U.S. with regards to negotiating and auditing management, licensing, digital distribution and recording deals. A musician himself, Leo has been a session guitarist on over 5 independently released albums, including two original releases by his own bands.

Niels Schroeter: Niels Schroeter, General Manager of Surfdog Records, has 20 years of broad and intensive music business experience. With a career that began as an A&R scout at Capitol Records, he has gained tremendous knowledge of the industry as a personal manager of international recording artists, and, more importantly, through his various roles at Surfdog, Inc. where he has been integral in building the company's successful record label, publishing company, and youth marketing division from the ground-up. Niels' expertise in managing recording projects from inception through release, music marketing, physical and digital distribution, publishing, licensing, touring, merchandise, international, contract negotiation, budget preparation, royalty accounting, and "personality management" makes him a well-rounded executive equally capable of dealing with front-line issues and big-picture strategy.

Gaynell Rogers: Gaynell Rogers has worked in the communications, music and film industry since 1972. Professional experience includes work as an Agent, Executive Producer, Post-Production Supervisor and national publicist for a wide breath of clientele. She has served as Head of Feature Film Publicity for Pixar Animation Studios, Manager of Russian Hill Recording, Sr. Publicist for Lucasfilm as well as projects for Phillips Dupont and Skywalker Sound. Currently she is owner of Blue Muse Management Inc. (since 1985) and formed Press & Release Entertainment, with partner Katrina Markarian in 2005 for management, publicity, national tour support and emerging media. Current clients include Roy Rogers, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra, The Bill Graham Memorial Foundation.

Eric Case: Eric Case is a freelance web/product strategist who worked at Google from 2003-2008 on Blogger.com, one of the web's most popular publishing tools. Blogger is available in over 40 languages, and is used by millions of people worldwide. While at Google he worked in a wide variety of roles, from end-user support to internationalization, to QA to Developer Relations - his final role was 1.5 years as Blogger's lead Product Manager. Prior to Google, Eric graduated from Miami University in Oxford, OH, USA in 2001 with a degree in Classical Humanities. After graduating he spent a year backpacking (and meditating) around the world - before settling down in the San Francisco Bay Area. Though History was his chosen course of study, he's always been a passionate user and advocate of computing and Internet technology. He maintains his Internet presence at http://vedana.net/, and he posts somewhat regularly to http://weblog.vedana.net/.

Randy Reddig: Randy is a technology and product leader with 15 years professional experience in design and development of consumer and enterprise software, web applications and interactive entertainment. Experienced with large-scale hosted blogging and social networking services, leading a team of developers in multiple countries in engineering and project management roles, delivering high-quality product on a fast, predictable schedule.

Hans Krueger: Hans Krueger is a co-founder of the acclaimed German-based brand and design consultancy MetaDesign, where he served as CEO for 12 years. In recent years, Hans has been working as an executive consultant. He is a co-founder (with Mark Gerzon) of the Global Problem Solving Collaborative (GPS Collaborative), which brings together the internationally acclaimed design company IDEO with expert practitioners from various fields to tackle pressing global issues. Hans is also actively involved in the management of the Global Leadership Network, a peer community for action and learning of seasoned practitioners from all continents and diverse backgrounds who are leaders in their fields.

Steve McGrath: Since September 2004, Steve McGrath has been the Chief Executive Officer of Spencer Trask Emerging Technologies Group, LLC where he is responsible for identifying, mentoring and realizing value in early stage companies in the communications, networking, information technology and Internet sectors in Silicon Valley, California. In July 2000, Mr. McGrath founded and was the Managing General Partner of McKenna Capital, LLC, an early-stage information technology and communications venture capital fund formed in partnership with Regis McKenna and the McKenna Group, LLC. Prior to that, he was the Founder and Director of Strategos, a strategy innovation consulting company, from January 1995 to June 2000, Manager at the MAC Group, an international strategy consulting company, from October 1991 to December 1994. Mr. McGrath received a B.A. and M.A. in Physics and Theoretical Physics from Cambridge University and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Amiel Kornel: Amiel Kornel combines experience in innovation strategy, new venture management, and venture investing. Since September 2004, he has been a Senior Managing Director of Spencer Trask & Co., where he is responsible for growing the firm's relationship network, identifying qualified early-stage investment opportunities, structuring investments, and supporting strategic management of companies within the Spencer Trask portfolio. From January 2003 to August 2004, Mr. Kornel was Managing Partner at Kornel & Associates, the Silicon Valley affiliate of Strategos, an innovation consultancy firm. Around that time, he authored a chapter on innovation for "MBA in a Box" (Random House, May '04). From January 1998 to December 2002, he was a Partner at The McKenna Group, a business consultancy founded by marketing guru Regis McKenna. Mr. Kornel received a B.A. in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago and an M.B.A. from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.

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