Ben Drury, Co-Founder and CEO

Ben began his career in 1996 as a founder of dotmusic.com, an internal venture at United News and Media. In 2000 Ben was headhunted by BT Group to head up the broadband music efforts at their ISP BT Openworld. At BT, Ben pioneered music and video downloads on dotmusic with the UK’s first unlimited subscription offer. Following the partnership between BT and Yahoo! to form BT Yahoo! in 2003, Ben engineered the sale of dotmusic to Yahoo!

In January 2004, Ben founded 7digital with James Kane.  He  was named by Growing Business magazine as a Young Gun in 2006 and in Billboard’s prestigious 40 Under 40 list in 2011.  Ben is currently on the board of the Entertainment Retailers Association and the Official Charts Company. Ben graduated from King’s College London with BSc (Hons) Physics with Philosophy of Science.

James Kane, Co-Founder

James worked in the new media department of United News and Media on a variety of titles before finding his way to dotmusic.com. James was instrumental in turning dotmusic from another trade magazine website to Europe’s leading consumer online music destination. Having found early success with legitimate music download services at dotmusic by creating one of the country’s first music commerce platforms, and later the UK’s first legal unlimited music subscription service, James then founded 7digital with Ben Drury in 2004 with the vision of creating a digital media marketplace.

Will England, CFO

Will England has over 15 years’ experience gained from financial and management positions with KPMG (where he trained) and a number of start-up organisations including The Wisden Group and now 7digital. Will played a key role in The Wisden Group’s transition to a profitable organisation and the subsequent sales of Cricinfo.com to ESPN and The Wisden Cricketer magazine to BSkyB. He spent the first four years of his working life touring the UK with a number of theatre companies as Production Manager (and van driver).

Stephen Somerville, SVP Commercial

Prior to joining 7digital, Stephen was Commercial Manager at UKTV for more than three years, working across a network of 10 channels to maximise revenue from the UKTV portfolio. Before this, Stephen was head of programming for UPC TV’s four premium Sport Channels in Central Europe, which reached more than 1.2 million subscribers. Prior to this, Stephen was Business Development Manager at Yahoo! UK & Ireland.

Kelaine Blades, VP Global Marketing

Kelaine has over 18 years of product management and marketing experience in the mobile and technology industries. Having worked with both operators and vendors in the UK and US, Kelaine has a deep understanding of how digital technology has evolved and its potential application. She’s held senior roles in marketing at Novarra (now Nokia), AeroMobile, and Velti. Kelaine has a BA in Economics and an MBA in International Marketing and Management.

Alyssa Tisne, VP Strategic Partnerships

Alyssa began her career in digital music at Real Networks in 2003, assisting during the acquisition of Rhapsody. She subsequently joined Wilson Sonsini as a summer associate when the firm represented Google in its IPO. Prior to her legal training, Alyssa worked for Wall Street firms Merrill Lynch and Sidley Austin. In London, Alyssa joined the New Media and Technology division of the BBC and was involved in the digitisation and monetisation of archive content. She holds an MBA from the University of Oxford, a JD from the University of Washington, and BA degrees from the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Vickie Nauman, President – North America

Vickie Nauman specialises in digital media and content strategy, the intersection of technology and music, and international business development. Vickie is President – North America for 7digital, and most recently led the global content strategy and partnerships for Sonos, the wireless digital music system for the home, and ran the consultancy CrossBorderWorks. Prior work includes creating the online strategy and service for boutique Seattle music station KEXP, content development for RealNetworks/MusicNet, and marketing for the National Public Radio Network and Procter and Gamble. She has a broad network and experience in Europe, China and North America, and earned a 2006 MBA through the London School of Economics, New York University, and HEC-Paris, in the collaborative executive program TRIUM.

 Raoul Chatterjee, Senior Vice President Music

Raoul joined from Warner Music in November 2012 and works closely with music industry partners to support the ongoing development of 7digital. Previously he ran the commercial strategy and operations for Warner Music UK enjoying a successful time working with artists such as Ed Sheeran and Michael Bublé and overseeing partnerships with services such as iTunes, Youtube and Spotify. He has been a pioneer of the development of new digital business models from the early beginnings. Raoul was also previously Director of Sales & Digital at Ministry of Sound, before becoming MD of Trinity Street Direct, a leading direct-to-consumer proposition for artists such as Oasis and Muse.

Rob Bowley, Director of Technology

Rob joined as Principle Developer in 2009, took the position of Head of Development in 2010 and in late 2012 became Director (VP) of Technology. He started his career as a programmer around the time of the first DotCom bubble. Before joining 7digital he spent time at Lycos Europe, the BBC and the Lawn Tennis Association. Rob brought to 7digital his experience of working on large scale web systems and his passion for Agile/Lean delivery. Rob is particularly proud of the extremely capable and passionate technology team he’s built who’ve enabled our open API platform to scale at an exponential rate and be able to support all the many clients and services we have.

Spiros Chavelas, MD and Financial Controller of 7digital Europe sarl

Spiros began his carrier in early 2000 when he was recruited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). After accumulating considerable experience in accounting and financial analysis for a period of 8 years, he left to lead the International Activities department of a multinational group of companies in the apparel sector. In 2010 he joined the Bradford school of management where he did his MBA (FT 100 list). Following the completion of the MBA program, he worked for a special project with HSBC securities services and in September 2012 he joined the 7digital family.