Ned Sherman is CEO and Publisher of Digital Media Wire, Inc., where he works at the center of the rapidly growing digital media industry. Under his leadership, Digital Media Wire has grown from a small newsletter publisher into a well-respected B-to-B brand that owns and produces five annual conferences - Digital Music Forum, Games & Mobile Forum, Digital Media Conference, Future of Television Forum, Digital Commerce Summit and The Billboard Digital Entertainment Conference & Awards (now DEMXPO) - and provides daily news, information and community to 30,000+ executives and professionals at entertainment, media and technology companies throughout the world.

As digital media community-builder, Ned has established partnerships with the leading B-to-B media companies and educational institutions, including VNU Business Media, Billboard Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Reed Business Information, Multichannel News, Business 2.0, Business Week, CableFax/CableWorld, VIBE/SPIN, MidemNet, NYU's Stern School of Business, USC’s Center for Telecom Management and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and hundreds of the leading digital media companies, including Microsoft, Real Networks, Sony Corporation of America, AOL Time Warner, Napster, Yahoo! and many more.

Ned’s background is in law. Before joining Digital Media Wire, Ned spent 7+ years as a corporate and entertainment attorney practicing at several of the leading law firms in the world with an international client base across industries including technology, Internet, media and entertainment.

As a founding member of the iLaw Group in the Entertainment Department at Loeb & Loeb LLP in Century City, he handled complex licensing transactions and financings for media and entertainment clients including Universal Studios and MGM and launched dozens of Internet and new media start-ups. He has counseled company founders from initiation of a business plan to seed, angel, venture capital and later-stage private financings and managed all legal aspects of Internet clients from corporate organization, stockholder relationships, board compositions and dynamics, stock option plans, capital raising and security regulatory matters, Internet law issues, trademark, copyright, content and technology licensing, advertising and privacy issues.

He sits on the Board of Directors of Wild Way, a non-profit dedicated to cultivating environmental awareness and developing educational programs for inner-city and “at risk” kids and has traveled extensively from Europe to Asia to South America to Northern Africa. Ned is married and lives with his wife and son in Hollywood Hills, California.

Michael Petricone is the senior vice president of government affairs for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). In his position, Michael has been responsible for representing the CE industry’s position before Congress and the FCC on critical issues such as digital television broadband, privacy and home recording rights. Mr. Petricone is a frequent speaker on policy issues impacting the consumer electronics industry, and in 2003 Michael was featured by Dealerscope Magazine as one of the technology industry’s “Top 40 Under 40”. Mr. Petricone received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and his undergraduate degree from Tufts University. CEA represents more than 1000 U.S. manufacturers of audio, video, accessories, mobile electronics, communication, information and multimedia products that are sold through consumer channels. CEA also sponsors and manages the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s largest annual trade event showcasing consumer electronics products.

Ralph Simon · Chairman Emeritus & Founder

Ralph Simon is regarded as one of the founders of the modern mobile entertainment industry.  After co-founding Zomba & Jive Records and building both from their formative years into highly successful independent companies and a distinguished career in the recording industry, music publishing and producer management, he moved to California from London in the early 1990s.  As Executive Vice President of Capitol Records and Blue Note, he started EMI’s New Media division in the mid-‘90s. 

Simon correctly predicted that mobile phones would become the indispensable voice-and-music companion for young music and culture  consumers, and was responsible for co-founding Yourmobile/Moviso in 1999, the first ring tone company in the USA, UK, Europe, Africa and Australia. He founded the Mobile Entertainment Forum-Americas, the industry trade group of which he is Chairman Emeritus today.  

In 2005 he introduced the terms Mociology and Mocio-Economics, and a new field of study,  that examined the impact of mobiles and mobility on people’s social lives and behavior.    The inaugural lecture was held at the Royal Society of Arts in London and the world’s first professorial chair in Mociology has now been established at a South African university. 

In July 2005, Simon served as the mobile producer of the Live 8 global concerts.  The influential Mobile Entertainment magazine identified him as one of the world’s Top 50 executives in mobile entertainment in 2005 and again, in 2006.  He was global mobile producer for the  Live Earth global cross-platform event with Al Gore in July.    

In September 2007 he received  the prestigious Mobile Entertainment Magazine Award for his ‘Outstanding Contribution to Mobile Entertainment’.  He is currently advisor and global mobile producer of  Pangea Day (www.pangeaday.org) , the unique cross-platform project scheduled for May 2008 by the TED Conference organization. 

Simon was one of the early trailblazers for mobile music internationally, evangelizing artists, managers, digital creators, technology companies, media companies and labels to link to artists, their persona and their music via their mobile phones.  He works with leading companies and executives around the world to strategize and successfully expand their influence and commercial opportunity using wi-fi, Wi-Max, mobile and mobile entertainment.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in the UK, and a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences in the USA.

Greg serves as president and chief executive of The Orchard, the world’s largest and leading marketer and distributor of independent music. Greg is also a managing director of Dimensional Associates. Dimensional acquires and operates media and technology companies. In addition to The Orchard, Dimensional’s holdings include eMusic, the world’s leading digital retailer of independent music and second-largest digital music retailer worldwide (second to iTunes); and Dimensional Music Publishing, a traditional music publisher with over 20,000 copyrights including catalogues ranging from The Byrds and John Denver to Billy Strayhorn.

Greg joined The Orchard from McKinsey & Company, where he was an associate partner in the Media & Entertainment group. Prior to McKinsey, Greg was managing partner of Carlin Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Ed Cohen, founder of General Atlantic Partners. Prior to that, Greg was a principal in Booz Allen & Hamilton's Media & Entertainment group. Greg holds an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College in History and Science. 

Mark Ghuneim launched the online and mobile company Wiredset in 2004 after 16 years with Sony Music USA, where he was most recently Senior Vice President for Online Services. In that role, he created and implemented online marketing campaigns and was responsible for Sony Music's online sales. As Senior Vice President of Online & Emerging Technologies for Sony's Columbia Records Group, Ghuneim was instrumental in the careers of artists such as Destiny's Child, Jeff Buckley, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Billy Joel. Ghuneim has pioneered innovations in new media as the music industry has evolved during the past three decades. Before joining Sony, Ghuneim was Director of Press and Video Promotion for the legendary independent label Beggars Banquet Records. In the nascent days of music video, he was program director and production manager at the New York City video night club Private Eyes. Ghuneim has moderated numerous panels at industry gatherings and guest lectured at universities in Los Angeles and New York. He has worked as as a mentor with New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Ghuneim photographs have appeared in publications such as New Musical Express, the British music weekly. 

David Pakman is a Managing Director of Dimensional Associates, the parent company of eMusic, The Orchard, Dimensional Music Publishing (formerly DreamWorks Music Publishing) and Dimensional Mobile Entertainment. He also serves as President and CEO for eMusic and Dimensional Mobile Entertainment.

Pakman is a pioneer and entrepreneur in the world of digital music. He was the Co-founder and President of Business Development and Public Policy at Myplay, Inc., the broadband application services company founded in 1999 that introduced the “digital music locker” and pioneered the locker category. After selling Myplay to Bertelsmann’s eCommerce Group in 2001, Pakman was named Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Public Policy for BeMusic, a division of Bertelsmann.

Prior to Myplay, Pakman was an early principal force and co-creator of Apple Computer’s Music Group, co-founding the Macintosh New York Music Festival and co-producing the then-largest industry webcast to date, the 1997 GRAMMY Awards. After Apple, he became Vice President at N2K Entertainment. He served as a board member of the Digital Media Association (DiMA) and was co-chair of its licensing committee.

Pakman has advised scores of companies in the digital entertainment space, and remains a board member of Knitting Factory Entertainment, and an avid musician and songwriter. Pakman has spoken at more than 100 events over the past decade, including Plug.in, Webnoize, Digital Hollywood, PFF Summit (Progress and Freedom Foundation), Paul Allen’s conference, Billboard, Winter Music Festival, SxSW, NxNW, AES, NAMM, Leadership Music in Nashville, Macworld, Digital Music Summit, Music 2.0, MobileMusicCon, and more.

He has testified in front of Congress on issues related to music copyright in a digital age, and has published in the American University Law Review. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science Engineering from University of Pennsylvania.