Gary Himelfarb is the founder of MyReggae.com, a site built by Loud Feed, which uses Loud Feed tools as the backend to manage digital music content and related metadata. Gary founded RAS Records in 1979, which he recently sold to Sanctuary. He established a reputation as Doctor Dread, DJ for a major Washington DC radio station (WHFS), where the songs of Reggae greats like Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff first reached the airwaves. Gary is also a former Sound Exchange Board Member.
Dick Huey started Toolshed in 2001 to provide new media promotion, digital music service licensing, and online strategy services to a select list of Media and Entertainment clients, as well as state-of-the-art digital promotion tools. Toolshed handles new media promotion for independent artists as diverse as Ani DiFranco, Spoon, XTC, The Chemical Brothers, Cat Power, and Sleater-Kinney, and for record labels representing the cream of the crop of worldwide independent music, including the Beggars Group, Matador Records, Touch and Go, Merge Records, Righteous Babe Records, Kill Rock Stars, Saddle Creek, and and many others. Prior to his creation of Toolshed, Huey started, and for five years developed and ran, the new media department at the Beggars Group (XL Recordings, Too Pure, Matador Records, Beggars Banquet, 4AD). Dick is a new media committee member for the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) headquartered in New York, as well as a legal committee member of the independent rights initiative MERLIN. Dick is also a Sound Exchange Board member, representing Matador Records, serving on the licensing, communications, and new business committees. Dick provides consulting services to a variety of international rights organizations, as well as to independent digital service provider Consolidated Independent, and the Playlouder MSP. Dick’s latest initiative is Syndicated Planet, a distribution network for tastemaker independent music.
Debbie Manzari runs Tafari Music focused on publishing and licensing Reggae music. Tafari’s catalog features almost 8,000 song titles – including some of the most popular names in Reggae and World beats. Tafari songs have been featured in major studio releases, national advertising campaigns and on Billboard Top 100 Lists. Tafari artists have been recognized with Grammies, ASCAP Pop Music Awards, the Jammies and AFIM Awards.
Kirsten Suarez is Assistant Brand Manager for Olay at Proctor & Gamble. She received her M.B.A. from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and her B.B.A. from the honors program at University of Miami. Prior to business school, Kirsten gained experience in program management for a start-up, and in market research, recruitment and retention at Nielsen Media Research. While in business school, she worked on a strategy consultancy project for Coca-Cola.