WYasushi Akimoto is a Japanese record producer, lyricist, and television writer, best known for creating and producing some of Japan's top idol groups, Onyanko Club and the AKB48 franchise. Total sales of the singles he has written exceed 100 million copies, making him the best-selling lyricist in Japan.
WAlex "Feather" Akimov is a Russian–American guitarist and composer who has been active in the music industry for nearly ten years as a touring musician, a session guitarist and a solo artist in his own right. Akimov has appeared on eleven studio albums, has played hundreds of live performances across the United States, and has collaborated with a wide variety of notable artists, including Steve Vai, Britney Spears and Rihanna. Akimov has repeatedly stated that The Beatles have played a hugely influential role in his musical development, whilst also publicly acknowledging Greg Howe as a favorite guitarist.
WPaul DH Baylay is an artist manager & music publisher notable for his work reuniting UK boyband Blue. In 2010, Baylay led a prominent campaign to have Jewish two time Academy Award winner, Luise Rainer, honoured in her native country of Germany. Rainer was the world's first actor to win back to back Oscars in 1936 & 1937. Rainer had been forgotten when the Boulevard der Stars opened in 2010 in Potsdamerplatz, Berlin, despite being Germany's only Academy Award-winning actor. In 2011, Rainer was nominated for a star but was then rejected by the jury. Baylay campaigned across Germany, lobbying press and politicians to support the campaign to have the actress and her work recognised. The campaign was supported by the German Central Council of Jews. In August 2011, the Boulevard der Stars finally relented acknowledging the social media, email and letter campaign led by Baylay had been key in their decision to awarding an additional star in favour of Luise Rainer. In September 2011, Rainer then aged 101, flew to Berlin from her London home to formally receive her star on the Boulevard der Stars together with Paul Baylay and Klaus Wowerweit, the mayor of Berlin.
WDave Becky is an American comedy talent manager and producer. He works with 3 Arts Entertainment and has more than 100 production credits. He has received nine Emmy nominations for his work as an executive producer on the Netflix series Master of None and various productions with comedian Louis C.K. He has shared in two Peabody Awards for his work as an executive producer on two FX series, Louie (2012) and Better Things (2016). Becky also serves as an executive producer on Russian Doll on Netflix and Insecure on HBO.
WJonathan Michael Chunn is a former member of the New Zealand bands Split Enz and Citizen Band. He performed alongside his brother Geoff Chunn in both bands. His musical performing career was cut short due to agoraphobia.
WBertis Edwin Downs IV is an American entertainment lawyer. He originally provided legal counsel, and then became both counselor and manager, for the rock band R.E.M., taking over from the band's long-term manager Jefferson Holt. He is usually credited simply as the band's "Advisor."
WKian John Francis Egan is an Irish singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter, best known as a member of music group Westlife. Westlife has since released twelve albums, embarked on thirteen world tours, and won several awards, becoming one of the most successful musical groups of all time. He was a coach on The Voice of Ireland and won the thirteenth series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2013.
WHadi Nabil Elazzi is one of the founders of Turkish music production - management company and record label GRGDN. He was the manager of several renown Turkish artists like maNga, Gripin, Göksel, emreaydın and Vega.
WNorbert Ferré is a French magician and artist manager.
WJeremy Nathaniel Geffen was an American entrepreneur, third generation entertainment executive, and the president and CEO of Creative Rights Group, which he founded in 2014 in Los Angeles. He was also the founder and president of Geffen Management Group, which manages music artists, actors, and celebrity estates.
WPaul Gildea is an Australian musician, music educator and talent manager. He is best known as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for the band Icehouse.
WShep E. Gordon is an American talent manager, Hollywood film agent, and producer. Gordon is featured in a 2013 documentary, Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, which was directed by Mike Myers.
WEric Greif is a lawyer and entertainment personality known first for a management and record production career within the heavy metal musical genre in the 1980s and early 1990s, and later within the legal profession. Canadian filmmaker Sam Dunn has referred to Greif as a "hugely important figure in the extreme metal scene." He is the nephew of deceased American-Irish writer and publisher Martin Greif.
WGRGDN is a Turkish music production and artist management company as well as a record label based in Istanbul. The name of the company originates from the Turkish word gergedan which means rhinoceros.
WWilliam Leonard Hunt, also known by the stage name The Great Farini, was a well-known nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Canadian funambulist, entertainment promoter and inventor, as well as the first known white man to cross the Kalahari Desert on foot and survive. He also published under the name Guillermo Antonio Farini.
WSol Hurok was a 20th-century American impresario.
WBeryl Ingham was the wife and manager of singer/actor George Formby, as well as being a variety performer and champion clogdancer.
WJoel Vicent Joseph also known as Mr Puaz is a Tanzanian Talent Manager and founder of Puaz Foundation & Puaz Shop, born 31 March 1985, in Arusha, Tanzania. He signed with the record label WCB Wasafi in 2018 as a talent manager. He has represented some of the artist in East Africa such as Harmonize, Nedy Music, Shetta and many others. In 2019, Joel won an award on Starqt Awards as "Most Supportive Man Of The Year" in South Africa and Africa Entertainment Awards USA as "Best African Talent/Artist Manager". BBC Swahili has also mentioned him as one of the top Talent Managers in Tanzania.
WBarry Katz is a television producer, film producer and talent manager. He was the owner and founder of the Boston Comedy Club in New York City and helped launch the careers of many successful comedians, including Bill Burr, Dane Cook, Louis C.K., Wanda Sykes, Dave Chappelle, Whitney Cummings, as well as Saturday Night Live alumni Jay Mohr, Jim Breuer, Darrell Hammond and Tracy Morgan.
WDavid Libert is an American music executive and musician. He was one of the founding members of the musical group, The Happenings. Hailing from Paterson, New Jersey, United States, The Happenings had several hit records including "See You in September" and a cover of "I Got Rhythm" that was on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles charts for 14 weeks in 1967, and peaked at number 3.
WElisabeth "Bessie" Marbury was a pioneering American theatrical and literary agent and producer who helped shape business methods of the modern commercial theater, and encouraged women to enter that industry. She was the longtime companion of Elsie de Wolfe, a prominent socialite and famous interior decorator.
WJames McNair, known by his stage names Jimmy Mack and Uncle Jimmy Mack, was an American comedian and writer.
WBenny Medina is an American record executive, talent manager, and television producer.
WFabrizio Moreira is an Ecuadorian politician and businessman. He currently resides in the United States after he fled as a political dissident against the former government of Rafael Correa in Ecuador. He is owner of the record label VIP Music Records, best known for managing the bookings of the rapper Soulja Boy from 2013 to 2014. He is also a dual LARAS / NARAS Grammy voting member and international speaker.
WNgô Thanh Vân is a Norwegian Vietnamese actress, singer and model. She is also known as Veronica Ngô or her initials NTV.
WOmer Pardillo Cid is a Grammy, Latin Grammy and Emmy-winning producer and talent manager. He began his career in 1992 in the Media Relations department at RMM Records in New York City. At RMM, he handled publicity for celebrities, such as Celia Cruz, Marc Anthony and Tito Puente.
WTodd Patrick is an organizer of independently produced concerts, based in New York City. Patrick was born in 1975 in Indiana, and grew up in Richardson, Texas.
WAaron Richmond was an American performing arts manager, pianist, impresario, and educator, based in Boston, Massachusetts, who managed the careers of numerous classical musicians and founded Celebrity Series of Boston, a performing arts presenting organization that still operates today.
WEmily Gerson Saines is an American talent manager and producer.
WStephen Short was a British record producer who also operated Ping Pong Music, an artist management company. Songs he worked on went on to become chart-topping singles that had won Grammy Awards, Academy Awards, and Golden Globe Awards.
WSi Siman was an American country music executive as a radio producer, talent agent, songwriter, record producer, television producer and music publisher who helped transform the sound of music in the Ozarks after World War II and into the 1980s. He discovered Country Music Hall of Fame Members Chet Atkins and Porter Wagoner, and secured record deals for The Browns and Brenda Lee among others; and was the key figure behind Ozark Jubilee, the first network television series to feature America's top country music stars. According to the Encyclopedia of Country Music, he was "the driving force in the emergence of Springfield, Missouri, as a country music center in the 1950s."
WScott Foster Siman is a leading American country music entertainment executive based in Nashville, Tennessee. He oversaw the rise of country music superstar Tim McGraw and the launch of Dancing With the Stars celebrity Julianne Hough, among others.
WSteve Stoute is an American businessman and author. Stoute is the founder and CEO of the Translation, a marketing agency, and the author of The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy. Previously, he worked in the music industry as an American record executive and artist manager.
WCharles William Strine was an American theatrical and opera manager best known for arranging the national tours and residencies of the Metropolitan Opera Company under the direction of Maurice Grau and Heinrich Conried.
WRussell Stuart is a Canadian television producer, talent manager, and founder of the company SuperBox in Beverly Hills, California.
WJake Udell is an American music manager, entrepreneur, founder of TH3RD BRAIN, and head of activation at Community.com. At the EDMbiz conference in Las Vegas in June 2014, Udell moderated a panel featuring panelists in the industry under the age of 30. After viewing the panel, music industry analyst Bob Lefsetz included an excerpt about Udell in his newsletter, "Jake is a new Shep Gordon, maybe a new Irving or Geffen." Udell was featured in Forbes 2016 30 Under 30 list in the Music category, and was listed as one of Billboard's 40 Under 40 in 2017.
WMichael Louis Vincent Walsh is an Irish music manager and television personality. He has managed Johnny Logan, Boyzone, Jedward and Westlife, four of Ireland's most successful pop acts in the 1990s and 2000s. He later began a career as a talent judge on shows such as Popstars (2001–2002), You're a Star (2003–2004), The X Factor, Ireland's Got Talent (2018–2019) and Junk Kouture (2014-present).
WMichael G. Weist III is an American record producer and actor. He is also known for his acting role in the film Jawline. Weist is a member of The Recording Academy.
WPedro Winter, also known by the stage name Busy P, is a French record producer, DJ, record label owner, and former artist manager. After being the manager of Daft Punk from 1996 to 2008, he founded the electronic music label Ed Banger Records, in which he signed artists like Justice, Breakbot, SebastiAn, Cassius, Mr. Oizo, DJ Mehdi and Myd among others.
WTochukwu Young Umezulike, better known as Toks Asher Young, is a Nigerian talent manager, entrepreneur and executive producer. He is also the author of the book, DEUCES: An Anthology of WORDS, RHYMES & POEMS.