Serenade

Vinyl Group x Serenade

We are still #hiring! Know anyone who might be interested? Come join Max Shand and I at Serenade in growing the reach of Smart Formats Please share and let me know if of interest to you

We’re #hiring a new Senior Partnerships Manager in United Kingdom. Apply today or share this post with your network.

We are hiring again at Serenade Come join Max Shand and I to help grow our ever expanding business of Smart Formats - physical items that unlock chart eligible music and bonus content https://serenade.co/

Serenade is searching for an experienced sales professional, ideally with prior music industry experience, to work alongside our Head of Strategic Partnerships Mike Walsh in selling Smart Formats into the UK market and abroad. Hybrid work between a UK home and London is required. Sounds interesting? Well then, look forward to chatting.

Serenade is looking for a UK-based Sales and Operations Executive to join our growing team. Now the question is - could this be you? Apply below. https://lnkd.in/gkHj4WER

Get to know ERA board member Mike Walsh Head of Strategic Partnerships at Serenade Q1: What do you love most about your role?  Talking to artists, labels and managers every day about new ways to delight fans and better renumerate artists and rightsholders whilst helping them with their chart goals. Having creative conversations about our new Smart Formats and what mad ideas some artists have! Smart Formats are innovative physical merch items that unlock chart eligible music and bonus content. Q2: What does a day in your life look like?  If at home - up early for a run, breakfast for the family then video calls with partners, Serenade team, labels, artists and managers. Ending with a game of badminton or a board game with my daughter. If in London, a run along the Thames, the best breakfast in London (Groucho Club) then meetings at labels and management offices before a work dinner and a gig. Q3: What new album are you most excited for? The 3rd Sam Fender album. I know it has taken him a minute to get it right but I believe it is now coming together. I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this but I’ve been told there is a song on there which is his ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. Can’t wait.     Q4: You're stuck on a desert island - what book, film, game and album would keep you company?  Book -  I don’t read a huge amount of fiction but I think fiction is what you would need on a desert island so probably ‘Trainspotting’ by Irvine Welsh. I was a student living in Leith when it came out so fond memories. Fond memories of living a student life in Edinburgh, not taking heroin. Film – ‘Life is Beautiful’ – an extraordinary Italian film from 1997 about a father and son in a Nazi concentration camp that is as funny and joyful as it is heart-breaking. Inspired by a true story, it is hard to describe but it is beautiful. Though I just watched the trailer and it really doesn’t do it justice.  Game – not a big gamer but my daughter and I have been quite obsessed with Zelda for a few years now. Album – The Blue Nile ‘Hats’ – been a close life companion since I discovered it around 1991 (it came out in 1989). It is incredibly comforting for me and seems to always fit whatever I am doing, wherever I am or however I am feeling. ‘Downtown Lights’ also now Taylor-famous!  Q5: What's your big hope for the entertainment industry? The embracing of new technology to improve the fan experience and better reward artists and rights holders. The magical ‘increasing the size of the pie’. My fear is that some of these opportunities get missed as labels and managers have to work harder just to make the day to day make sense. 

Now how's this for a post - today, Serenade has been acquired by ASX-listed music company, Vinyl Group (ASX: VNL). Serenade started with the mission of helping artists substitute their lost touring income with richer fan experiences during Covid. We launched a music service where artists could *serenade* their top fans 1 to 1, and wanting to scale the impact we could make on an individual artist basis, turned to NFTs and later, expanded digital albums and connected merchandise. At every step of the way we listened to industry feedback and thought deeply about how to serve artists and their fans. Our acquisition by Vinyl Group continues this mission, with Vinyl's resourcing and broad portfolio of companies promising to accelerate our impact on artists and their audiences globally. As fantastic as it has been serving a global roster of artists and the labels behind their music, the real joy of this 4-year chapter has been the opportunity to work alongside Serenade's exceptional team between Australia and the UK. Life is made wonderful by the people we surround ourselves with and I've had the great fortune of sharing this journey with compassionate and highly capable leaders Lulu Young, Suren Wickramasinghe, Shaun Katz, Mike Walsh and Melanie Weiss, Nick Jackman who joined Serenade as its first employee from my kitchen table, and the rest of the team who brought passion and skill into our every day. Thank you to Josh Simons, Jorge Nigaglioni and the Vinyl Group board for sharing our vision for supporting artists and audiences through innovative music products, and to the small army of friends, industry stakeholders and investors who gave us encouragement, support and guidance along the way. I'm excited to see where this next phase takes us.

Onwards ….. 🚀🚀🚀

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