Neil has spent the past 30 years in the field of music royalty licensing, processing and administration, including several very successful roles at executive level. He is an expert in many areas of strategy, operations and contracts for those parties seeking to either obtain, develop or offer services for the administration and licensing of music rights.

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Career to date

Having joined the UK Mechanical rights society (MCPS) in 1993, he first specialised in the areas of royalty accounting, sync licensing and developing licensing schemes for various type of music exploitation. Following the merger of MCPS and the Performing Rights Society (PRS) his roles developed into international and strategic partnerships, which included running the Mechanical society operations in Ireland, developing PRS’s option 3 digital strategy and leading PRS’s transformative joint venture initiative with STIM and GEMA to create and launch ICE Services.

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This final role at PRS involved providing the business input into the Competition Clearance process with the European Commission, negotiating the terms of the partnership and leading PRS’s input into the two projects that established both the UK based front-office and the German based back-office businesses of ICE.

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Upon launch of these new entities in 2016, Neil transferred to ICE Services to set up the finance, legal and customer services of the new front office venture, which by 2022 had successfully grown to processing €800m in annual royalties. His final role at ICE was VP Business Development, responsible for retaining and attracting all of ICE’s Collective Management Organisation (CMO) and Music Publisher customers for their digital and copyright services.

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During his career Neil has represented his organisations’ on various forums, often being invited to provide expert commentary and advice at European and US conferences on topics ranging from developments in the digital market for music rights to the importance of accurate and transparent systems and operations for administering music rights in an increasingly complex world. Having left ICE towards the end of 2022, Neil took a short career break and is now offering his knowledge and experience via consultancy services to various clients requiring an in-depth knowledge, understanding and experience of Music Publishers, CMOs and their activities, at both strategic and detailed levels.

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Education

In 1990 Neil graduated from Leicester University with a second-class BSc in Mathematics and was elected to the position of Graduate Member, Institute of Statisticians. He completed his 3-year part time MBA with the Open University in 2022 and has attended various business courses on subjects such as Implementing Business Strategies at establishments including Ashridge Business School.