KEYNOTE INTERVIEW - Willard Ahdritz 

A "Fireside Chat" between Willard Ahdritz and Sharon Tapper (Executive Director of MMF-US)

Keynote Speaker:

Willard Ahdritz, Founder & Chairman of Kobalt Music

Willard Ahdritz is the Founder & Chairman of Kobalt Music, a full-service platform for creators to track and manage their music rights and royalties, where, as CEO from 2002 to 2020, he introduced transparency and big tech to the industry and built the company into a top 3 global music publisher.  In 2021, he sold AWAL, a Music as a Service company for artists, and Kobalt Neighbouring Rights to Sony Music for USD 430 million.  He was the Chief Investment Officer and General Partner of Kobalt Capital heading two funds.  Fund I was sold to Hipgnosis for USD 323 million, and Fund II to a KKR-led consortium for USD 1.1 billion.  In 2020, Variety named him one of the most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry, and he received the 2020 Music Biz Innovator Award.  He is on the advisory board of the Norrsken Foundation’s Norrsken22 Africa Tech Growth Fund and an alumnus of SSE/NYU Stern.  He lives in New York with his family.

Sharon Tapper, Executive Director of MMF-US

Sharon Tapper is the Executive Director of the Music Managers Forum-US, the leading trade association for artist managers and self-managed artists in the United States. Serving the music community by providing educational resources, networking opportunities and advocacy efforts on behalf of managers, self-managed artists, and the music community at large that supports them. The MMF-US is part of a larger global network, the International Music Managers Forum (IMMF) – an organization that connects more than sixty-five Music Manager Forums around the world (inc. Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand).

Prior to joining the MMF-US Tapper worked in London as the Assistant Manager at Sarm West Studios, before relocating to the U.S. where in Los Angeles she worked at both Left Bank Management and Gallin Morey Management. Shortly after moving to New York she transitioned into music publishing becoming the third U.S. employee at Kobalt Music Publishing and their VP Creative for eight years. Following that she was hired to be the SVP Music Publishing at Razor & Tie Music Publishing. Tapper was elected to serve multiple terms totaling fourteen years as Governor & Secretary of the NY Chapter of the GRAMMY’s, serving six consecutive terms as Co-Chair of their Advocacy Committee, on which she continues to diligently serve. She also served four years on the NY Chapter of the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP). For ten years she Co-Funded and ran the New York City Creative Community (NYC3).