Richard Johnson

Founder • CEO

An entrepreneur and pioneer in new media, Richard is the Founder and CEO of East Lake Consultants.

Richard has the distinct experience of being both a successful investor and a business operator. His career started as an SVP at Bluestone Capital in New York and San Francisco, where he helped fund technology companies at the start of the dot-com era. After leaving finance to pursue his entrepreneurial passion, Richard founded East Lake Consultants and has taken three businesses from mere business plans, to successful exits. 

Richard co-founded and served as President of the OTT streaming service, Qello, which Forbes has described as “the Netflix of concert films and music documentaries.” He was responsible for all aspects of the business, from strategy to execution. He also developed and managed relationships with several major music labels and hundreds of independent content partners, and maintained relationships with Qello’s distribution partners, Apple, Google, and Amazon. 

Known in the industry for his unique foresight, Richard was early to identify the transition from linear to digital video. Due to this quality, he was able to position Qello at the forefront of every major platform launch and secured OTT rights within the music space years before others followed these trends.

Richard led Qello from a business plan, to financing, and through two successful exits. He first sold a majority stake of the technology division, Qello Media Solutions, to private equity company, Winnick and Co. He then sold the consumer business, Qello Concerts, to Canada’s publicly traded, multi-platform, music services company, Stingray Digital. Upon the sale, Richard became Stingray's first Head of Global Strategy, where he helped create, communicate, and execute Stingray's global direction. 

Richard lives in New York with his wife and two children.

Bob Frank

Content • Licensing • Relationship Building

Bob Frank is a veteran in the music and entertainment industries, with more than twenty years of experience in executive roles. He is currently the founder of Bob Frank Entertainment (BFE), a multi-faceted company engaged in film and television production, record label and distribution, music publishing, and management consulting for clients, such as BMG. Prior to Founding BFE, Bob co-founded Qello, where he served as Chairman and Chief Content Officer, handling all content acquisition, content management, and rights management.

Bob served as President of E1 Music Worldwide (formerly KOCH Records) and E1 Music Publishing (formerly KOCH Music Publishing), the content divisions of the largest independent music company in North America. Under his leadership, E1 Music placed over 200 albums on the Billboard Independent Chart, far outpacing the competition and maintaining the #1 Billboard ranking for that period. Before E1, Bob was President of Walter Yetnikoff’s Velvel Music Group, and General Manager/SVP at PolyGram, primarily at Mercury Records in Nashville.

Bob serves on a host of music-related charity organizations, including The Merlin Organization, a global rights organization representing the Independent music sector, the TJ Martell Foundation for cancer research, the annual Martell Family Day, and the UJA Federation Music for Youth Board, which funds music programs and scholarships for underprivileged children in New York City and surrounding areas.

Andy Cohn

Strategy • Music • Relationship Building

Andy Cohn has been on the cutting edge and intersection of brands, media, music, and culture for over twenty-five years. Andy is currently the founder of Shadrach Consulting, a company focused on helping brands and media companies navigate the highly nuanced landscape of branded entertainment.

Prior to founding Shadrach, Andy was president and publisher of the FADER for sixteen years where he built and led the brand into one of the most innovative and influential music media brands in the world today.

Andy was the first media executive to place then-upcoming artists, like Kanye West, Billie Eilish, Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Cardi B, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator, Pharrell, Bon Iver, Nicki Minaj and more, on the cover of a major magazine. The FADER has been referred to by many, including the New York Times, as the, "new music and fashion bible.” During Andy's tenure, the FADER was a recipient of numerous awards for brand partnerships and events with companies like Converse, Toyota, Coca-Cola, as well as accolades for editorial, design, and photography from establishments like ASME, Clio Music, Folio, MIN, Adweek, OMMA, Webby's and more.

Andy led the FADER's multi-media expansion beyond print into digital, social media, video, talent curation, music strategy, and consulting. He also developed a leading experiential offering, the FADER FORT @ SXSW, which has been active for the past sixteen years, and expanded the FORT's footprint to festivals like Governor’s Ball, A3C, The Gathering, and Something in the Water.

Andy also played a crucial role in the build out of the FADER’s video department, which led to creative partnerships with companies such as YouTube, Apple Music, and Snapchat. These partnerships resulted in numerous awards, for example four, recent Clio Music Awards for films produced by YouTube and the FADER.

Prior to the FADER, Andy worked in sales and marketing at SPIN and The Source under the tutelage of music media pioneers Bob Guccione Jr. and David Mays.

Dave Wooldridge

Chief Digital Officer • Apple Ecosystems • UI / UX

Founder of Electric Butterfly, Dave Wooldridge specializes in iOS app development, UI/UX, managing design, and engineering. Dave has been building software solutions since 1995, mobile apps since the advent of the App Store in 2008, and is a leading expert in Apple technologies, Objective-C, and Swift. 

Dave is the author of "The Business of iPhone and iPad App Development" (Apress), a co-author of "Beginning iPad Development for iPhone Developers" (Apress), and has written numerous articles for leading tech publications, including a monthly software marketing column for MacTech Magazine. He has also served as an adjunct professor for New York University SCPS, teaching a class based on his popular iOS business book.  

Nicole Johnson

Communications

Nicole Zeitzer Johnson has more than twenty years in the media industry. She is a Communications specialist with a wide range of expertise.

Nicole started her career with CNN where she was producer for 10 years, and later moved to NBC. Nicole then entered into Corporate Communications as a media consultant where she led PR and communications for a wide variety of outlets, including a leading professional women’s organization, a worldwide advertising agency, and a Fortune 300 financial services company. 

Nicole was the Director of Communications and a founding member of the OTT music streaming company, Qello. As an avid music consumer, coupled with expertise in broadcast video and technical convergence, Nicole has been integral in crafting the Qello brand via communication touch-points throughout all consumer-facing properties.  

In 2017, Nicole co-founded the FOXG1 Research Foundation to drive research to find a cure for FOXG1 syndrome, a rare genetic neurological disorder her daughter, Josie, was born with. The FOXG1 Research Foundation is already known as a leading Patient Organization and is on the fast track to biotech investment for clinical trials.

Greg Trautman

Data Science • Financial Modeling and Projections

Gregory Trautman received his Masters Degree in Data Analytics from Georgia Tech and has garnered over twenty years of experience helping companies grow through his knowledge and execution of data analytics, strategic planning, financial projections, and private equity.

Gregory specializes in custom designing and coding data structures using SQL and Python. He has many years experience creating internal KPI reports for strategic planning and external reports for partners. His ability to use state-of-the-art modeling, simulation, and machine learning to drive business decisions allows him to successfully bridge the financial, managemental, and technological departments of a company.

Gregory has the real world business and analytics acumen to ask and answer the right questions.

Simon Lait

Legal • IP • Copyright • Content Licensing

With thirty years experience in all aspects of the music industry, specializing in the representation of artists, producers, writers, rights owners and labels, Simon Lait is a formative player in the digital music distribution space and the development of music video. Being a negotiator and mediator, Simon is used to volatile and time-sensitive challenges and is comfortable in dispute resolution and the conduct of litigation. His areas of expertise include IP, copyright, licensing, contract, and financial engineering in the music, media, and entertainment industries. Simon has a proven record of developing products and services to fulfill technology-driven opportunities and in formulating entry and development strategies for businesses in emerging sectors and frontier markets.