The Echo Nest - powering intelligent digital music applications

Jim Lucchese (CEO)

Jim has worked in digital music strategy and corporate development for about 10 years.

Before The Echo Nest, Jim was a music lawyer at Greenberg Traurig, specializing in music and digital media deals. Clients included multi-platinum and independent artists, music publishers, digital entertainment companies and branded entertainment. Prior to GT, Jim held sales and corporate development positions at Hughes, where he managed market development and sales with annual revenues exceeding $20 Million. Jim was also Chief Strategy Officer of Webnoize/DMN, a digital entertainment research and advisory company serving over 500 clients.

Jim holds a B.A. from Boston College and a J.D., Magna Cum Laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center.

When he’s not at the Nest, Jim plays drums and still represents a few indie artists pro bono for fun. (jim[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Tristan Jehan, Ph.D. (Co-Founder & CTO)

Tristan earned a doctorate in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT in 2005. His academic work combined machine listening and machine learning technologies in teaching computers how to hear and make music.

He first earned an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Rennes in France, later working on music signal parameter extraction at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at U.C. Berkeley. He has worked with leading research and development labs in the U.S. and France as a software and hardware engineer in areas of machine listening and audio analysis.

Tristan plays keyboards for Boston-based Brazilian combo Brazilnut and builds software and interactive projects for musicians. (tristan[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Brian Whitman, Ph.D. (Co-Founder & CTO)

Brian is recognized as a leading scientist in the area of music and text retrieval and natural language processing.

He received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 in Machine Listening and a masters degree in Computer Science from Columbia University's Natural Language Processing Group. His research links community knowledge of music to its acoustic properties to "learn the meaning of music."

Brian is an electronic musician that teaches computers how to do it for themselves. (brian[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Jeff Bronikowski (Head Of Strategy and Corporate Development)

Jeff Bronikowski is a 17-year veteran of the media and entertainment industry. Prior to joining The Echo Nest in September, Jeff was Vice President/GM of AOL Music/Winamp and prior to that served as GM of Yahoo! Music.

Jeff spent the bulk of his career in the music industry at Universal Music Group, where he held several positions in digital strategy and business development, most recently as Senior Vice President of Global Digital Initiatives.

Prior to UMG, Jeff worked in financial analysis and strategic planning at HBO.

Jeff is an Adjunct Professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, where he teaches a course entitled "Impact of Technology on Media and Entertainment". He is a graduate of Georgetown University and holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from NYU's Stern School of Business.

Jeff also serves on the Digital Media Advisory Board of Trident Capital. (jeff[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Dave Rodger (VP Product)

A 20-year veteran of established technology firms and start-ups, Vice President of Product Dave Rodger has held a variety of product and development roles, most recently as the senior director of consumer product for the popular travel website TripAdvisor, where he oversaw consumer-facing product initiatives.

A graduate of Cornell University, Rodgers previously held executive positions at SimpleTuition and Experience, and was engineering manager of Firefly, one of the world’s first music recommendation engines. (dave[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Bob Spina, Ph.D. (VP Engineering)

Bob has over 25 years of experience in high technology with Fortune 500 firms and Boston area start-ups. Prior to joining The Echo Nest, Bob was a founder and Vice President of Engineering at RAMP, a SaaS provider for multimedia content optimization.

Bob has a Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from SUNY Buffalo. He has held senior positions at Raytheon BBN Technologies, Sonexis, Integral Access, 3Com, and NBX Corporation.

In his free time, Bob enjoys spending time with his family. (robert[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Elissa Barrett (Director of Communications and Operations)

With over 15 years of experience in the music industry, Elissa Barrett serves as Director of Communications and Operations for The Echo Nest. Before joining the company, Barret was Vice President of Strategic Marketing for independent record label Rounder Records, home to Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Madeleine Peyroux, Delta Spirit and others. She oversaw non-traditional marketing, product management, and new media marketing, with a focus on viral outreach and harnessing new technologies to reach consumers, cultivate relationships, and develop brand identities.

Barrett also held marketing positions at BMG Canada, contributing to the growing careers of Alicia Keys, Britney Spears, Pink, Dave Matthews Band, TLC, Tribe Called Quest, NSYNC, Foo Fighters, Usher, Christina Aguilera, and other high-profile artists, by using street-level and traditional retail marketing to reach customers and form partnerships. When not at the Nest, Elissa also teaches Music Marketing 101 for Berklee Music Online. (elissa[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Yury Faktorovich (Director of Solutions)

Director of Solutions Yury Faktorovich heads up The Echo Nest’s engineering department, managing software engineers who handle data collection and processing, and support The Echo Nest’s web services and API offerings.

For 15 years prior to joining The Echo Nest, Faktorovich developed and managed software development teams at companies including Kronos, Peer Direct, Progress Software and Parametric Technology Corporation, building media recommendation engines, web applications, and CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing) software. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering degree from Stony Brook University and an MBA from Babson College.

In his spare time, Faktorovich enjoys picking wild mushrooms in the woods of New England with his children. (yury[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Nick Durbin (Director of Technical Operations)

Director of Technical Operations Nick Durbin is a seasoned veteran of building highly scalable Software as a Service (SaaS) infrastructure and operations. Prior to joining The Echo Nest, Nick headed up Technical Operations & IT for DataXu, a real-time digital marketing platform company.  At DataXu he was responsible for designing and delivering their global SaaS infrastructure that supports many hundreds of thousands of transactions per second in addition to supporting rapid processing and analytics across petabytes of distributed data.

For the past 17 years Nick has held technical leadership positions for other high growth companies including Enpocket (acquired by Nokia), Gather.com, Endeca (acquired by Oracle), TeleSuite (acquired by Polycom), SiteSmith (acquired by Metromedia Fiber Networks), and DIGEX (acquired by Verizon).

When Nick is not moving data packets with his mind or grooving in his chair to the music playing throughout The Echo Nest office, he enjoys playing ice hockey, hiking, laughing, and spending time with his wife and two sons. (ndurbin[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Tim Ganss (Director of Business Development)

Director of Business Development Tim Ganss brings over 15 years of technology industry experience in sales, business development, and enterprise account management to The Echo Nest.

Prior to joining the company, Ganss was the founder and chief executive officer of SongSpar Productions, a social music game development start-up. In addition, he provided business intelligence and licensed large-scale data analytics platforms and “software as a service” (SaaS) solutions to Fortune 500 companies on behalf of early-stage high-tech firms Hyperions Solutions (acquired by Oracle), Cognos (acquired by IBM), and Microstrategy, growing sales in multiple technology segments and professional service fields.

Ganss holds a BS in marketing from Bentley College and spends his free time with his wife and two daughters. (tim[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Shane Tobin (Director of Strategic Partnerships)

Director of Strategic Partnerships Shane Tobin has been an executive in the digital music business for over 14 years. Early on he produced concert webcasts and artist interviews for House of Blues Digital. He then went on to manage Grammy Nominated Latin afro-funk band, Yerba Buena.

In 2006, Shane moved to San Francisco and was an early member of imeem where he was Director of Business Development and built out the music team. In 2009 he was recruited by MobiTV to head up their Business Development efforts in music as well as handling licensing for NBA, UFC and Fox Sports.

Shane has been known to play golf, snowboard, travel with his camera and frequent the city of New Orleans as much as possible. (shane[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Paul Lamere (Director of Developer Platform)

Paul Lamere brings 30 years of software development experience to his position as the Director of Developer Platform at the Echo Nest. Prior to joining The Echo Nest Paul was a researcher at Sun Labs where he was the Principal Investigator for the Search Inside the Music project.

Paul received his M.S in computer science from Boston University. He is active in the Music Information Retrieval and the Recommender Systems research communities and is especially interested in using data to help people explore, organize and discover music. A former 2nd chair trombonist with the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra, Paul authors the popular Music Machinery blog and is happiest when he is writing code. (paul[AT]echonest[DOT]com)

Eliot Van Buskirk (Editor in Chief, Evolver.fm; Lead Analyst)

Eliot Van Buskirk covered digital music and other disruptive technologies for over a decade for Wired, CNET, and others for over 13 years before launching Evolver.fm, the first publication dedicated to music apps from the listener's perspective.

Published by The Echo Nest, Evolver.fm is syndicated to Wired.com, Gizmodo.com, Business Insider, and Huffington Post. Van Buskirk is the author of two books (Burning Down the House: Ripping, Recording, Remixing and More and an iPod book, both for McGraw-Hill), and he's a regular on NPR and other media outlets. His latest articles can be found at twitter.com/evolverfm.

Van Buskirk rides a bicycle and plays the bass. (eliot[AT]echonest[DOT]com)