HUBweek Change Maker: Panos Panay
Panos Panay, Founding Managing Director, Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship
A Berklee College alumnus, Panos Panay is the founding managing director of the recently launched Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (ICE). Offering an academic curriculum, research projects, and an incubation environment to encourage new startups within the music arena, Berklee ICE aims to inspire innovation through an entrepreneurial focus and collaboration with Boston’s extensive network of higher education institutions. Panos, who founded the platform Sonicbids, will oversee the program’s development at the intersections of creativity, technology, and business.
What is Berklee’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship? And how did you get involved? The mission of BerkleeICE is to bolster the entrepreneurialism of all our students by offering programming, classes, experiences, workshops and services that are accessible by all Berklee students — and even alumni and faculty. We believe that in today’s marketplace these are the skills and instincts that need to be cultivated in order to have a successful career in music and beyond. The idea is a byproduct of discussions that President Roger Brown and I had dating back to my time as chair of the Presidential Advisory Council, when we started feeling very strongly that to succeed in today’s music industry one needs skills that go way beyond what a traditional music curriculum offers.
How would you define creative entrepreneurship? It’s above all a mindset: the ability to tap into one’s innermost creative instincts — which musicians have in abundance — in order to advance and bring to fruition an innovative idea, a unique vision, a successful career. Entrepreneurship for us is a state of mind, not just a business pursuit.
Is there anything unique about Boston as it relates to creative entrepreneurship? Absolutely. Boston is a true one-off in this area. There is no other city on the planet that within a few square miles there is a concentration of some of the world’s most creative people (Berklee. Emerson, MassArt, SFMA, New England Conservatory); coupled with the amazing business minds at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan or BU; the scientists and researchers in any of our universities; the sheer engineering prowess of MIT School of Engineering or the innovative spirits at MIT Media Lab. I can go on and on. We just need to create more situations that enable more creative collisions between our students — which is what we are doing with BerkleeICE.
What motivated you to work in this field and what excites you most? After I sold my company Sonicbids in 2013, I wanted to do something different, something that would challenge me in different ways, something that would expose me to a totally different set of people. It was an interesting challenge for me — after 13 years of being CEO of a company that I founded — to find myself in a field [higher ed] where I had to basically hit the reset button and learn a whole slew of new skills and behaviors. Both higher ed and the music business are going through an unprecedented amount of change and disruption — how could I not be attracted to being a part of that and having the chance to shape these fields in whichever a small or big ways?
What is one thing you wish people knew or thought about entrepreneurship in general? That it’s both innate in every human being — much like music — but that it’s also a very, very, very hard path to choose and it can be all consuming. True entrepreneurs for me are creators — and, creative. They are able to make something out of nothing. Like any other artistic pursuit, there’s something magical to it.
What advice would you give to a new founder? Being an entrepreneur is like becoming a parent or joining the priesthood — it doesn’t end when, say, Friday evening rolls around. It’s all consuming, full throttle, all-in 24/7. There’s a lot of romance portrayed in the press today about starting your own business but, admittedly, it’s not for all. If you choose to do something, don’t do it because you think it’s going to make a lot of money. Do it because it’s something you truly believe in, because it’s something you are passionate about bringing to reality, because it’s something that will advance your community, your society, your planet, your world. And if you do good, you will do well.
Learn more about the work being conducted at Berklee ICE and visit HUBweek.org to discover events and experiences related to creative entrepreneurship and much more. Panos was recently quoted as a Change Maker in HUBweek’s 2016 Preview featured in The Boston Globe.
The HUBweek Change Maker series showcases the most creative and innovative minds in art, science, and technology making an impact in Boston and around the world.
