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.