GERD LEONHARD
CEO, ThinkAndLink / Sr Advisor to Sony Net Servcies
_____________________________________________________

Gerd Leonhard is a respected music futurist and oft-quoted visionary, a well-known music industry executive and music business entrepreneur, a sought-after strategic adviser and music industry super-nodeÑand still a performer (guitar), writer, and producer. A native of Germany, Gerd has spent more than twenty years in the U.S. music, e-commerce, and entertainment technology industries, and is equally at home in the U.S. as well as in Europe. He currently resides in Basel, Switzerland.

During the dot.com days, Gerd was the founder and President/CEO of LicenseMusic.com, a company that revolutionized music licensing, reducing the average transaction time for music licenses from six weeks to two hours. LicenseMusic, Inc. served thousands of clients from 1996-2002, including Disney, Paramount Pictures, and Fox TV.

He is the Founder and CEO of ThinkAndLink (TAL), a boutique advisory agency based in Basel, Switzerland and San Francisco. TAL connects people, ideas, companies, and resources in the converging sectors of entertainment and technology, and catalyzes their development. As CEO of ThinkAndLink, he serves as Senior Advisor to Media Rights Technologies, BlueBeat, and ShareTheMusic Networks. Gerd sits on the Advisory Board of Musicrypt, Inc., and works with dozens of startups and new ventures in the entertainment and technology industries in Europe and the U.S.

Gerd served as the Executive Producer of the pan-European talent event EuroPopDays, as Expert Advisor on the Cultural Industries to the European Commission in Brussels in 1993-1996, and as Senior Strategic Adviser to Rightscom Ltd. (London). Gerd graduated with a diploma in Jazz Performance (Guitar) from Boston's Berklee College of Music (1987), and won the college's highly acclaimed Quincy Jones Jazz Masters Award. His performance credits include touring internationally, including opening engagements for major acts such as Miles Davis.

He has been quoted in Billboard, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, San Francisco Chronicle, Business2.0, Wall Street Journal, and Wired, and continues to speak, moderate, and/or present at the music industry's biggest events. He publishes his music business visions at MusicFuturist (www.musicfuturist.com), and is the founder of the MusicEntrepreneurs Network (www.musicentrepreneurs.com), a network platform for entrepreneurs in the music business. Visit his Web site at www.gerdleonhard.com, and check out his blog at gerdleonhard.typepad.com.