A&R Lightning Rounds

A music industry professional whose passion and focus lies in talent discovery, talent development and music touring. My goal is to continue to find talent that I believe in at the early stages of their career and work to develop their sound, performance and brand with integrity, creativity and resilience at the forefront. I hope to one day serve as a safe space for under appreciated talent, especially young black women like myself.

Daniel Bearman is a music executive with over 10 years experience in Artist Management, A&R and Music Publishing. Daniel has a truly global perspective having worked in London and Los Angeles. He’s A&R’d No 1 singles in the UK, Ireland and on the U.S. Radio Charts as well as having multiple Top 5 and Top 10 singles around the world, multi-platinum & gold-selling singles in over 16 countries including US, UK, Germany, Sweden, Canada & Australia. Before taking his current position as Senior Director of A&R at Concord Music Publishing, he guided the careers of multi-platinum selling artist Snakehips. With them he won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Song and was nominated for MMF ‘Breakthrough Manager of the Year’ award. He orchestrated the collaborations between Snakehips and some of the biggest artist in the world including Zayn, Chance The Rapper, H.E.R, Anderson.Paak, Tinashe, DRAM, MØ, Tory Lanez and many more.

A veteran music marketing and creative production executive, Richard Ellis helps young music artists, entertainment companies, brands, and nonprofit organizations create unique content and marketing strategies to target their respective audiences. Ellis’s ability to forecast trends, fuse marketing and innovation to connect music, brand messaging and young consumers has made him an invaluable asset to many global music artists, record labels, and TV and film producers.

Prior to creating his youth focused marketing agency, 12to20, Richard held executive positions at Warner Music Group, Sony Music, RCA Records, and Time/Warner. In 1998, he launched 12to20 to fill the market need for customized, cutting-edge teen marketing that would marry unique creative approaches for artists and advertisers, and not for profit messaging with a particular focus on in school marketing and education. 12to20 has brought these programs to over 10,000 schools across the U.S.

In 2012, funded by Universal Music Group, he founded myKaZootv, a music label and video channel for preschoolers, as a broadcast platform for the creation of music focused children’s shows. Jam Hotel, Ellis’ animated music education show, a partnership with WGBH/PBS, was sold to Netflix in 2016.

But the thing that gives him the most pleasure is working as a creative and business consultant for many young artists helping them launch their careers and directing them on their music and video production, branding, marketing, touring and performances. Among the artists he has worked with are Taylor Swift, The Jonas Brothers, Ashley Tisdale, Mindless Behavior, Fabolous and Avril Lavigne.

In 2015, he launched a management partnership to work with these young clients with Ron Stone of Gold Mountain Entertainment, the legendary music management firm, whose extensive list of clients have included Crosby, Stills and Nash, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and Joss Stone.

Ellis has also worked extensively with global brands such as Disney, MTV, Lionsgate, Neutrogena, Reebok, CBS, Dodge, Ford Motor Company, Teen Vogue, Pepsi, P&G, and every record company in the world. He has produced television programming for Netflix, Cosmopolitan and A&E and has music supervised films for National Lampoon Films.

And in an effort to foster positive messages for young consumers, he has created campaigns for MADD, SADD, Rock the Vote, Amnesty International, NAMM, Do Something, the ONDCP, the CDC, and the NIH. He has also served on the advisory council for mpower, Project Echo, Natural High, Film Your Issue, and LA YOUTH.