Gerd Leonhard

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Gerd Leonhard (born in 1961) is a self-proclaimed media futurist, blogger, digerati, writer, speaker and advisor. He has spent over twenty-five years in the technology and entertainment industries, both in the U.S. as well as in Europe, and recently in Asia. Gerd writes about the changes in ‘content’ and media companies as the consequences of the new technologies, and of convergence.

Gerd Leonhard

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Gerd Leonhard was born in 1961 in Bonn, Germany. He attended gymnasium outside Bonn, and later studied Lutheran Theology at the University of Bonn, while also cultivating an alternate life as a rock musician, green-party activist and songwriter. In 1982, Gerd moved to San Francisco to dive into the local music scene, and ended up attending Boston's Berklee College of Music after receiving the coveted ‘Quincy Jones Award & Scholarship in 1985. After graduating in 1987 Gerd went back to California and expanded his career as a professional musician, arranger and composer.

[edit] The Musician

From 1987 to 1999 Gerd toured and recorded extensively in the U.S. and in Europe, The highlights of his career included opening shows for the late Miles Davis, as well as playing behind the chicken-wire fences on a decrepit stage of a neo-hippie-meets-urban cowboys country juke-joint near Bakersfield, California.

[edit] The Dotcom era

Gerd experienced the .com boom years - the booms and the busts - firsthand, as Founder, President & CEO of the influential and often copied LicenseMusic.com, Inc. in San Francisco California. LicenseMusic revolutionised the tedious and slow process of B2B music licensing, and pioneered cutting-edge E-Commerce applications for the key businesses processes in the record and publishing business.

[edit] Later Years

[edit] The Speaker

Gerd Leonhard is a motivational speaker. Apart from his in-house appearance at major media companies, he has given keynote speeches at professional Music and Media conferences, including the FT Media Conferences, MIDEM, Popkomm, CMW, Musexpo, Imobicon, and Digital Hollywood. Gerd's presentations address issues such as the advent of the user-creator, the attention economy in media, the so-called ‘wisdom of the masses’ and the rise of user-generated content, content syndication and the rise of the pull-not-push paradigm in marketing, new business models for digital content, the culture of participation in media, copyrights versus usage rights, and the consequences of mass media becoming personal media. Gerd covers technology, legal issues, social and cultural contexts, as well as future business models and the trends affecting them. Gerd speaks at company and organization meetings, workshops and conferences. Among his clients include the EBU and ABU, SonyBMG, the BBC, ITV, RTL, Unisys, Gracenote, AIM / Impala, the Music Publishers Association, MediaCorp Singapore, SUISA and the European Commission.

[edit] The Writer

In 2005, Gerd Leonhard co-authored the critically acclaimed and often quoted book "The Future of Music" which has become a must-read for music industry professionals around the globe. The Future Of Music has become a bestseller worldwide, and is now available in Japanese, Italian, German, and English. The book is widely used in schools and universities as educational literature. Gerd’s second book "The End of Control" will be published in 2007, expanding his scope into TV, film, radio and print media. Gerd Leonhard is also considered an influential blogger, and recently has started his own youtube channel[1]. Gerd has appeared on the BBC, NBC, CBC, DRS, ZDF, Arirang TV, and has been interviewed or quoted in Billboard, Wired, the Wall Street Journal and countless other publications.

[edit] The Entrepreneur

Gerd Leonhard is also a serial entrepreneur, with a focus on digital music & media. He currently serves as Co-Founder and CEO of SONIFIC, a venture-funded company in San Francisco that provides music widgets and applications for blogs, social networks and online communities. However the site was shut down at the end of April 2008 after being unable to negotiate licenses from major record labels, Gerd announced the shutdown in a blog post in which he described the music industry as 'certifiably dysfunctional' and complained that companies which have successfully negotiated with the major labels (such as spiralfrog, imeem and last.fm) have had to pay large advances, agree to unrealistic use rates and adhere to bizarre restrictions^[1]. Gerd Leonhard also works as an advisory board member of select start-ups and new ventures in the entertainment and technology industries worldwide, and holds advisory positions with mainstream media companies, as well.