PANEL - Money: Cashflow & Access to Finance

How do artists and their teams access funding and the cashflow needed to develop the artist’s career? Signing rights to labels and publishers? Maxing out credit, crowdfunding? With an increasing range of financing options available, competition, digital metrics, and the growth of cultural asset classes, is creating opportunity for artists.

New services offer artist’s funding without asking for rights ownership in return, and can also disconnect service provision (i.e. A&R, distribution, marketing, etc), from the financing ‘deal’, placing more responsibility on the artists team to run the business, but providing greater flexibility in deploying finance to build an audience and revenues. The better you run your business, the better you can take risks with your art. If you raise finance using new services, do you also need to raise your game as a business? What are your backers offering you, and what are you offering them?

Featured Speakers:

Michael Bizenov, President of Sound Royalties

President of Sound Royalties, Michael Bizenov, is a highly skilled executive with extensive experience in finance, strategic planning, and business development. Bringing a principled entrepreneurial management style to the company, Michael leads our innovative business, helping to shape its vision and lead its continued growth.

Over the course of his distinguished career, Michael has successfully built and grown several companies, and has a proven track record of taking many promising businesses to the next level. Utilizing a diverse background in financial services, business strategy, management development and more, he is renowned not just for his keen acumen in planning and strategy, but also for his relentless commitment to effectively creating and executing business plans that foster growth and success.

Previously, Michael was a consultant for UBS and Litchfield Road Consulting, where he provided senior advisory support on business and strategy development, program implementation, financing, and overall business transformation. Prior to that, he spent 20 years in various executive roles at Sterling National Bank, helping grow the bank’s assets from under $1 billion to $15 billion and culminating his tenure there as the institution’s President of Consumer Banking.

Michael’s passion for music began at a young age when he learned to play the drums, and carries on today as an avid supporter and fan of a wide variety of music and the people who create it. Michael is also active in many community and charitable activities, including creating and leading a teen leadership development and mentoring program at a community center in Queens, NY, work as a trustee in various not for profit organizations, and serving as a long-time youth basketball coach and a board member of his local Catholic Youth Organization.

Matthew Tilley, Head of Artist and Industry Development at beatBread

Matthew Tilley is an experienced music industry veteran who has spent almost twenty-five years developing compelling and innovative marketing and development campaigns for some of the best-known artists in the world. He has worked at the crossroads of technology and music to create global initiatives that drive successful artist outcomes, and has a proven track record in building effective relationships between artists, labels and the wider music industry ecosystem. 

Matthew is Head of Artist and Industry Development at beatBread, with a remit to help more artists gain access to funding, empowering them with enhanced choice and control. Since launch in 2020, beatBread has helped almost [xxx] artists with advances against streaming revenues from new and catalog tracks, giving them the financial freedom to build the team and partnerships that work best for them. 

Prior to taking his current role, Matthew worked alongside beatBread founder Peter Sinclair at Universal Music Group as Vice President of Consumer Engagement. In that role he ran a team of ten, working across all of the company’s labels to create innovative direct-to-consumer campaigns that significantly enhance an artist’s direct relationship with fans. The division scaled revenue from less than $10 million to more than $160 million within four years, and built meaningful revenue streams for artists including Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and The Weeknd. 

He spent two years as Senior Vice President of Business Development at Disciple Media, leading the start-up’s relationship advancement with key music and entertainment artists, managers and partners. Through Matthew’s work, the subscription-based app service built deep relationships with a series of artists, including Luke Bryan, Rufus Wainwright and ODESZA. 

Matthew was previously Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at EMI Music, developing worldwide campaigns for a series of international artists including Pharrell Williams, Beastie Boys and Norah Jones. Standout successes for Matthew and his team included the global success of Katy Perry, 30 Seconds To Mars and Lady Antebellum (now Lady A). 

Before joining EMI in 2006, Matthew held a number of roles in both London and New York with Universal Music Group labels Island Def Jam and PolyGram International. 

Matthew has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Studies with a marketing specialism from Thames Valley University in the United Kingdom. Matthew is married with one son, and lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Richard Conlon, Founding Partner of CatchPoint Rights

Richard Conlon is a Co-Founder & Partner at Catch Point Rights Partners, an alternative investment management firm focused on the music rights and royalties sector. Prior to Catch Point, Richard served as Chief External Affairs Officer and Chief Corporate Development Officer at SoundExchange the digital sound recording rights agency, overseeing the artist relations, global public policy and communications teams and the company’s expansion into new lines of business. Previously, a senior executive at Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) for more than 20 years, serving as Senior Vice President Corporate Strategy, Communications & New Media. Richard launched BMI’s global digital rights licensing division, managed corporate communications and oversaw the firm’s global corporate strategy and planning efforts. He served on the Board of Directors of The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd where he was Chair of the Management Committee and on the Board of Directors of SXWorks. Richard holds an M.A. in Communications Management from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California; B.A. in English from Boston College.

Rob Bonstein, Chief Operating Officer at HIFI

Rob Bonstein is COO at HIFI and a leader who has pushed the music industry forward from roles in major record labels, artist management, and touring. Previously Rob led Business Development for Paradigm Talent Agency's music department after its acquisition of The Windish Agency, where he was an executive in charge of Strategy and Business Development. At The Creed Company he created innovative album and tour marketing campaigns for the Grammy Award-winning artist Bruno Mars, including one of the first Spotify-centric album release campaigns, leading to milestone streaming performance for Unorthodox Jukebox and "Locked out of Heaven" in 2012. He started his career in record labels, including at Epic Records where he created new digital sales forecasts for the finance department and ran the Digital Marketing team, running release campaigns and web, social and CRM strategies for artists including Shakira, Sade, Ozzy Osbourne, Sara Bareilles, and more. Rob is a previous panelist at SXSW, Digital Music Forum West, ASCAP Expo, GRAMMY Camp, Music Biz, and more.

Moderator: Neeta Ragoowansi, President of MMF-US

Neeta is Executive Director of Folk Alliance International (FAI) and also serves as President of Music Managers Forum – US (MMF-US), a Global Co-Chair for Women in Music, Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Task Force for the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment & Sports Industries, and Co-Founder of NPREX (National Performing Rights Exchange).  She has been an attorney and music business professional for over 30 years, serving as a strategic advisor, business development resource, and legal counsel to entertainment, nonprofit, and tech industry clients. Prior to her position as ED of FAI, Neeta was Senior Counsel, Legal & Business Affairs for Global Citizen, founding head of artist-label relations and legal counsel for SoundExchange, VP of Biz Dev/Legal for Tunesat, Asst. General Counsel for The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Symphony Orchestra Association, and a former board governor for 10+ years for The Recording Academy (NY & DC). Neeta also currently serves on the advisory boards of IMMF (International Music Managers Forum), Gritty in Pink, IAFAR, All About Music and SXSW Conference. Neeta has served as speaker at over 300 music industry conferences re: the global music business, legal, and copyright topics, as well as Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility, elimination of bias, and women’s leadership and empowerment.