The Royalty Exchange’s team includes successful serial entrepreneurs and top entertainment professionals. We came together with a vision of providing an efficient marketplace for professionals seeking to monetize their royalty income, and a general public who wants to buy this type of income online.
Sean Peace (Founder)
Sean has started several companies and spent the last several years developing SongVest. SongVest is the only marketplace that sells entertainment royalties as high end memorabilia, with auctions that have included the rights to songs recorded by Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Carrie Underwood, Ringo Starr, Ozzy Osbourne, and The Monkees. Through this experience, he has identified an untapped market: selling royalties as income streams for new buyers.
His previous experience spans working for one of the largest privately held software companies in the world selling to fortune 1000 companies, to starting the alliance organization in Latin America, to running global alliances and selling into public sector.
Reggie Calloway (Co-Founder and President/VP of Sales & Acquisitions)
The five time Grammy-nominated Reggie Calloway has always displayed a unique ear for music and trends. It is no surprise that the music pioneer received a Grammy nomination for R&B Songwriter of the Year for the hit song “Casanova” in 1987.
Best known as the founder and leader of one of the most popular Techno-funk bands, Midnight Star, Calloway led the group to international success by writing, producing and arranging a string of top mega #1 hits including, ” Operator”, “No Parking On The Dance Floor”, “I Wanna Be Rich” and “Freak-a-zoid”.
One of Calloway’s original compositions entitled, “I’ll Be Good For You”, was featured on N’Sync’s multi-platinum CD, “No Strings Attached” (highest selling album of the last decade). He has also penned songs for the chart toppling group, Levert, (“Casanova”), the sultry Teddy Pendergrass (“Joy”), the Grammy winning Gladys Knight, (“Love Overboard”) and “Jump Start My Love” for Natalie Cole.
Wilson Owens (Co-Founder and Director of Marketing)
Involved in the music industry and the online community for many years, Wilson Owens has experienced almost every aspect of the entertainment business. Coming from a family of movie actors, film directors, musicians and entrepreneurs, he decided to follow suit by intertwining his knowledge of technology and music.
Owens’ path began at Press Here Publicity in NYC, a PR firm that has dealt with The White Stripes, Stone Temple Pilots, Allison Krauss, Def Leppard, Mos Def and TV on the Radio. In 2009, he became involved at the prestigious independent record label: Merge Records. Boasting an all-star roster of bands including Arcade Fire, Spoon, Superchunk and She & Him, Owens surrounded himself with very successful members of the music industry.
After a short stint at Deep South Entertainment, Owens started heading the marketing efforts at SongVest and The Royalty Exchange.
Board of Advisors
Klaus Lovgreen (Owner at evershift and Founder of AME Info)
Klaus Lovgreen founded AME Info in 1996 and launched initially as a CD-ROM business directory for the Middle East. AME Info became the leading provider of business and financial information in and about the Middle East and was the first online media in the region to be audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK) in 2005. In March 2005, HSBC Private Equity Middle East Ltd. acquired significant equity stake in AME Info FZ LLC and on the 4th of July 2006, London-based Emap plc (EMA.L) announced that Emap Communications, its business-to-business (B2B) division, acquired AME Info.
Lovgreen invested into a number of technology companies from 2008 onwards including Tradeshift, Wordy, Oxis Energy, Gridiant Corp, Malaysia.com and Everbread among others. In 2011 the Telegraph named Lovgreen the 55th most influential technology investor in Europe. Lovgreen founded Evershift limited in April 2011 to make direct investments and provide various advisory services. Evershift made its first significant investment into APSU.com – a merged managed services and infrastructure business in the UK during the summer of 2011 and went onto investing into music royalties.
Rick French (Founder/CEO of FWV and Trustee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)
Rick French is chairman & chief executive officer of French/West/Vaughan (FWV), a public relations, public affairs, advertising and digital media agency with offices in Raleigh, New York City, Austin, Tampa and L.A. In 2012, FWV ranked as one of the nation’s 75 largest integrated marketing agencies, independent or otherwise.
In addition to being French is also a member of the board of trustees of the internationally-renowned Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and chairs its annual benefit concert.
Martin Diessner (Co-Founder of Flip Media and Tech Investor)
Martin grew up in Leipzig, Eastern Germany and later on studied International Management with focus on Finance and Marketing at Bradford’s Management Center. He also has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from London’s City University.
In 2004, Martin Diessner co-founded Flip Media, which later became the leading digital media and marketing company across the Middle East. In December 2006, HSBC Private Equity Middle East Ltd. acquired a significant equity stake in Flip Media. In January 2012, Flip was sold to Paris based Publicis Groupe (third largest communications group in the world) and folded into Leo Burnett Worldwide.
In 2008, Martin retired from the day-to-day operation of the business and since then has invested into various companies including The Royalty Exchange, Wordy, Vice Versa, Malaysia Travel, Oznium and many others.
Hans Bald (Chief Executive Officer of 20 Gates Management)
Hans Bald, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of 20 Gates, has over 20 years’ experience in structured finance and is one of the leaders in the industry. Prior to starting 20 Gates, he spent 10 years heading up the Conduits and Credit Products Group within Fixed Income at Credit Suisse, responsible for the structuring, purchase, and portfolio management activities of Alpine Securitization Corp ‐ coordinating the firm’s secured lending activities. Along with his asset backed conduit responsibilities, Hans was also responsible for the ABCP trading desk and the Auction Rate Securities Desk.
Previously, Hans was the head of the debt origination unit at Smith Barney responsible for CP, CD and MTN programs. From 1987 to 1994 he held various positions within Merrill Lynch’s Money Markets Division, including Product Manager for Commercial Paper. Hans received his BBA in Finance from Ohio University and his MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Josh Borg (Managing Director of 20 Gates Management)
Josh Borg, a co‐founder and Managing Director of 20 Gates Management, has over 15 years’ experience in structured finance and asset management. Joining Credit Suisse in 2000, he grew to be a Director in the Conduit and Credit Products Group, covering esoteric ABS, CDOs, synthetics, U.S. munis, distressed workout and balance sheet/regulatory capital solutions. In this role, he assembled over $20 billion in synthetic balance sheet CLO transactions. He was also instrumental in the bank’s effort to actively manage down exposures in investment vehicles to maximize asset recovery.
From 1997‐2000, Mr. Borg worked on the buy side at CGA Investment Management, a boutique asset manager specializing in mezzanine ABS, MBS and CMBS sectors. From 1994 to 1997, he held various positions in Fixed Income Trading at Wells Capital Management, the asset management arm of Wells Fargo Bank. Josh received his BA in Economics from Occidental College and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.