Every year, A2IM’s Indie Week, presented by SoundExchange in partnership with BuzzAngle, is one of the most hotly-anticipated events in the independent music community. The event’s workshops and panels provide a valuable opportunity for education and networking and draw legal, marketing, and musical leaders from across the entertainment spectrum. This year’s Indie Week will take place June 18-21.
As part of this year’s remarkable lineup, A2IM is thrilled to announce their keynote speakers Tamara Hrivnak (Head of Music Business Development and Partnerships, Facebook) and Kevin Liles (CEO, 300 Entertainment).
“Our A2IM team is sharply focused on optimizing attendee experience for this year’s Indie week including presenting the most cutting-edge topics from our industry’s brightest luminaries. Our keynote speakers are visionary leaders from top industry companies that are shaping our music ecosystem from both the creative and distribution sides. I’m thrilled that Tamara Hrivnak of Facebook and Kevin Liles of 300 Entertainment are joining us to speak this year. Download the A2IM app to stay up to date on schedules for panels, speakers, and showcases!” Richard James Burgess Ph.D., CEO of A2IM
As head of Facebook’s Music Business Development and Partnerships, Hrivnak leads the global music strategy for the social media giant. She has a profound expertise in deepening the relationship between digital/social media platforms and the music industry, with eight years at Warner Music Group and several years as the Director of Music Partnerships at YouTube and GooglePlay.
Liles got his start at Def Jam Records as an unpaid intern, where he rose through the ranks to president and built the company into an international powerhouse. After his tenure at Def Jam, Liles founded 300 Entertainment and has spent the past few years moving data-driven music forward with artists such as Migos and Fetty Wap.
As always, Indie Week will feature workshops and panels including some of the brightest minds of the music industry. This year’s attendees will hear from JD Samson (Le Tigre/MEN), Sam Valenti (Ghostly International), Hank Stockard (Redeye Worldwide), Natalie Hapgood (mtheory), Jessica Sobhraj (Women in Music), Anna Siegel (FUGA), Rev. Moose (Marauder), Kristen Grant (Westcott Multimedia), Kevin Ericson (Future of Music Coalition), Charlie Phillips (WIN), James Celentano (EnterGain), Feleix Contreras (NPR Alt. Latino), and many more to be announced.
Indie Week will be held at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, the heart of the Latino and Puerto Rican music and arts community on NYC’s Lower East Side. A2IM is excited to partner with the Clemente to honor the thriving independent music scene that beats at the heart of our beautiful city.
The culmination of the week’s events will be the Libera Awards, hosted by comedian Kate Wolff and held on June 21 at the PlayStation Theater. Presented by SoundExchange, the Libera Awards provide an opportunity for the independent music community to honor their own and celebrate the past year’s hard work and accomplishments.
While 2017’s Indie Week was the largest and best-attended yet, A2IM is elevating this year’s event to an even greater height with the introduction of the A2IM mobile application. The A2IM mobile application will be the central hub for all things A2IM Indie Week and Libera Awards. Within the app, people will be able to see the full week’s schedule, check out confirmed panelists, keynote speakers and find all of the need-to-know information about this year’s event, as well as purchase tickets. The A2IM app is available for download for Android and iPhone.
For more information about Indie Week or to purchase tickets, click here.
A2IM Indie Week is presented by SoundExchange in partnership with BuzzAngle. Additional Indie Week sponsors include HyperWallet, Songtrust, TuneRegistry, Spotify, CI.
About Tamara Hrivnak:
Tamara joined Facebook in 2017 to lead music business strategy and business development. Previously, she was responsible for YouTube & Google Play’s Americas music partnerships. Her tenure at Google included global leadership of Google Play’s strategic partnerships with telcos, OEMs and retailers for all digital content.
Before joining Google, Tamara was Vice President of Digital Strategy & Business Affairs for Warner/Chappell Music Publishing and, prior to that, served as Associate Counsel, Digital Legal Affairs for Warner Music Group, where she was responsible for digital distribution deals, including with Google, Apple, Microsoft, carriers, game publishers, app developers and start-ups.
Over the years, Tamara has represented WMG, Warner/Chappell and Google in their respective industry trade associations such as the Digital Media Association (DiMA), the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
About Kevin Liles:
Kevin Liles is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 300 Entertainment, a strategic technology based entertainment company and record label featuring established and up and coming artists such as Fetty Wap, Young Thug, Coheed and Cambria, Highly Suspect, Tee Grizzly and more.
Liles has one of the most storied careers in entertainment, rising from unpaid intern in 1991 to President of Def Jam Recordings by 1998. During his seven-year tenure as President, revenues doubled to $400 million through the diversification of the Def Jam brand, artist roster, and channels. Liles was instrumental in the leap of artists from “performer” to “global brand” among many of the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B including Jay Z, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, LL Cool J, and Ludacris. In 2004, Liles joined Warner Music Group as Executive Vice President and served on the executive team that took WMG public. He led WMG’s innovative “360-degree” strategy, expanding the limits of an artist’s career, while also trailblazing a way forward for recording companies as a business model formerly built around CD sales underwent dramatic erosion.
Liles is a committed philanthropist and advocate for youth empowerment and education. He is the founder of Kevin Liles for a Better Baltimore, which empowers disadvantaged youth in his hometown, and the Make It Happen Foundation, which provides underserved youth with entrepreneurship skills and exposure to higher education. He serves as a board member or advisor to several other organizations focused on empowerment, diversity, and social justice, is the is the best-selling author of Make It Happen: The Hip-Hop Generation Guide to Success and a producer for the critically acclaimed Broadway play The Trip to Bountiful, which earned Cicely Tyson her first ever Tony Award.
Liles is from Baltimore, MD, where he also attended Morgan State University. He currently resides in New Jersey.
About A2IM:
A2IM is a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit trade organization headquartered in New York City that exists to support and strengthen the independent recorded music sector. Membership currently includes a broad coalition of more than 500 Independently-owned American music labels. A2IM represents these independently owned small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) interests in the marketplace, in the media, on Capitol Hill, and as part of the global music community. In doing so, it supports a key segment of America’s creative class that represents America’s diverse musical cultural heritage. Billboard Magazine, using Nielsen SoundScan data, identified the Independent music label sector as 35.1 percent of the music industry’s U.S. recorded music sales market in 2016 based on copyright ownership, making Independent labels collectively the largest music industry sector.
The organization’s board of directors consists of the following: ATO Vice President Stephanie Alexa, Razor & Tie COO Craig Balsam, Redeye Co-Owner Glenn Dicker, INgrooves EVP & General Manager Amy Dietz, Epitaph/Anti General Manager Dave Hansen, Big Machine COO Andrew Kautz, Beggars Group Founder/CEO Martin Mills, Hopeless Records Owner Louis Posen, Dualtone CEO/Co-Founder Scott Robinson, Tommy Boy Owner & CEO Thomas Silverman, and Secretly Label Group Co-Owner Darius Van Arman.
For Media Inquiries:
Kiva Kamerling
The Press House
[email protected]