Steve and Robert are currently abroad on business in China after a brief trip overseas to open our South Korea based offices.
Our team is extremely proud to announce that operations at Vezt Korea are underway as our new team gets to work on building out their version of the platform.
With the inception of Vezt Korea, the platform is poised to offer the purchase of music rights (and more) in two of the largest markets in the world. This week we’ll be introducing their team in addition to our steps towards taking on European markets, sharing updates on our music publishing conference series and more.
Introducing Vezt Korea
Lead by our SVP of Asia / South Pacific, Timothy Kim, Vezt Korea is specifically focused on growing and developing an app and platform that are localized for the Korean music industry. Their team is a combination of K-entertainment industry veterans and experienced financial professionals with a range of varied skill sets and professional networks that are unrivaled for introducing the Vezt app to the Asia Pacific region.
JUNGYOON “JY” HWANG 황정윤
CCO / VEZT KOREA
Jung “JY” Hwang is an expert in digital experience design and operation with an executive level background
in Industrial & Information Design and entertainment business. Shortly after starting his career in marketing at McCann Erickson Korea, JY found his passion in business strategy and founded an advertising and design firm, Varo Design, where he consulted on branding and strategy for notable clients like Hyundai Innocean, BMW, Corentec, and KT.
SUNG-IL AHN 안성일
COO / VEZT KOREA
With more than 20 years of Korean music industry experience, Ahn is an entertainment veteran with an expertise in music production and strategy. As a renowned songwriter and producer, he’s credited with helping to pioneer K-pop, producing albums for major first generation artists within the genre. Ahn worked as a production director for Warner Music Korea, directing the nationwide launch of pop artists such as “Michael Buble”, “Craig David”, “Eric Benet”, “Jason Mraz”, “Josh Groban”, “Linkin Park” and “Coldplay”.
JONG-SOO KIM 김종수
VP Content Relations / VEZT KOREA
Jong-soo Kim has cemented his position in the Asian entertainment industry over the past 20 years. He began as a K-pop choreographer and later grew into a regaled and trusted A&R mentor for various major entertainment companies. With his extensive work recruiting investors for drama OSTs and collaborative albums, he achieved shining success in maintaining sales amounting to over 10 million dollars.
YUN-WOO LEE 이윤우
VP Management Support / VEZT KOREA
Lee has more than 15 years of experience in financial management. Before joining Vezt Korea, he served as the CFO of 24th Street. At Hanwha Investment & Securities Co., Lee was in charge of managing and trading tens of billions of bonds for ‘Nonhyup Bank’ and consulted for ‘Shinhwatp’ during its affiliate IPO.
JINSIL BAEK 백진실
Director / VEZT KOREA
From design, concept planning, A&R, production, promotional planning, and marketing, Baek is a multifaceted force in the K-entertainment industry. Prior to joining Vezt Korea, she served as the Director at 24th Street where she oversaw project development, management, music production, and content design and has worked as a key contributor in numerous collaboration projects between the Korean and Southeast Asian entertainment industries.
YUSUN HWANG 황유선
Manager, IT / VEZT KOREA
Yusun is a computer science and technology veteran with extensive experience in programming, game development, web and mobile app development, embedded software
engineering, and Graphic Processing Unit programming. Prior to joining Vezt Korea, she was responsible for project programming for a number of Korean Tech companies. Some of her key works include software development for the BMW Future Foundation Experience, Corentec, Korea Ministry of Science, and Seoul Foods.
BANSUK YOON
Sales Manager / Vezt Korea
Bansuk Yoon has in-depth experience working on various television drama and movie productions as an entertainment company team manager. Yoon has also performed online advertising and marketing for dramas, fashion, magazines and celebrity scouting. He has also managed influencers and bloggers while overseeing the distribution of press releases for
national and international firms.
Second Music Rights Publishing Conference
In collaboration with WeWork, Vezt was honored to host the second of our Music Publisher and Rights Holders Conference at the Musician’s Institute of Los Angeles. Over 350 employees enjoyed a panel with guest speakers that included DJ Rap, our own Chief Strategic Officer Andreas Carlsson, CEO Steve Stewart and more. Our next Music Rights Publishing Conference is August 29th at the WeWork Nashville and features a panel discussion guests Nick Ferrara (musician’s attorney), Kevin Williamson (A&R at Interscope, Warner and Atlantic Records) and Andy Gould (manager for Rob Zombie, Guns & Roses, Linkin Park etc.). Tickets will be available online so keep an eye out for a link to get yours soon.
First royalty statements are in!
Our first ISO related royalty payments have been received from Warner Chappell Music Group. These are the first wave of royalties received for a number of our pre-launch ISO catalog. Owners of these rights will be contacted by our royalties department regarding their payment prior to the completion of the platform. Payments for these ISO’s will be issued through app once it’s complete if you participated in a pre-launch ISO and have not received a message from our Royalties department, kindly reach out to us at support@vezt.co.
International Expansion
To further support our growth in the international music market, we’re happy to share that we’ve enlisted Hedia Charni and Xavier Delaunay as satellite consultants based in Paris, France. Hedia frequents MTV as an anchor and entertainment personality, with a number of years of industry experience behind her.
Xavier, known under the name Redeyes, is a professional multi-platinum record producer, publisher, composer and artist director who worked with major artists like Shakira, Davido, Maître Gims, MHD, Florent Pagny, Louane, Niska, Angélique Kidjo, Dadju, Das Efx and more. He has over 20 years of experience running two prominent record labels and a publishing label with specialties in hip-hop, pop, urban pop, afro and commercials music.
Together, with decades of combined industry experience, they lead Redeyes Music Group in Paris. Next month they’ll join our team at HQ in Los Angeles to help execute strategies for bringing Vezt to Europe.
That’s all we have to cover for now- this may be our longest post to date! In the coming updates, we look forward to sharing news from our teams around the world as well as more details from our Engineering department on the Vezt mobile app and beta. Stay tuned and, as always, reach out to us at support@vezt.co if you have any questions or comments.
