April 27, 2023 (Los Angeles, CA) – OpenPlay, the music industry’s leading asset management platform, has hired 20+ year music and entertainment industry veteran Justin Levenson as Professional Services Product Lead. In this role, Levenson will work with OpenPlay’s engineering team, clients, and other stakeholders to ensure the platform is operating properly and meeting client needs, help design new features to improve functionality, and more.
Levenson joined SESAC in 2001, spending 15 years working in both the Licensing and Writer/Publisher Relations departments and gaining experience working with engineers to build and launch a predictive analytics project that streamlined the company’s licensing process. After rising to Sr. Director, Licensing Operations at SESAC, Levenson joined Big Machine Label Group in 2019. There, he built and led the company’s Label Resources team, which focuses on process improvement, technology implementations, and harnessing the power of the label group’s global consumption and finance data. Later, by way of the acquisition of Lyric Financial, Levenson joined Utopia Music as Commercial Director, Financial Services/Sr. Product Manager. There, he led a team developing an industry-leading advance and artist platform, automating statement ingestion and simplifying revenue tracking.
Levenson got his start as a music educator and freelance musician, teaching percussion at the high school level while working with a long list of legendary artists and songwriters, including Luke Bryan, Gary Burr, Marcus Hummon, Lionel Richie, Victoria Shaw, and Don Schlitz. He also performed on several award-winning recordings, such as the Grammy Award-winning Songs From The Neighborhood: The Music of Mr. Rogers featuring Donna Summers. In addition, he is the author of the book “You Are Stronger Than You THINK: How to Awaken the Superhero Within,” which is available for purchase on Amazon.
Levenson also remains highly involved in his community and the music industry. He has served as an advisor, mentor or Board member at organizations such as Leadership Music, the WO Smith Community Music School, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, Remix Hits, SOLID (Society of Leaders in Development), the Country Music Hall of Fame Troubadour Society, Songs From The Heart at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (in partnership with CAA), Library of Congress’ National Recording
Preservation Board, and NEL (Nashville Emerging Leaders).
“Justin is an incredible addition to the OpenPlay family, and his experience leading teams across every facet of the industry will be a major asset as we continue to bring our products and services to more customers,” said Edward Ginis, Co-Founder and Chief Client Officer at OpenPlay. “He’s one of the most passionate and outspoken product evangelists in our space when it comes to empowering artists and rightsholders with the tools they need today to prepare for what the industry brings tomorrow.”
“Being a part of the OpenPlay family is a professional dream come true, and I am excited and grateful to have the opportunity to build on our continued success, developing impactful products and services that empower everyone in the global entertainment and music industries with the power of OpenPlay,” said Levenson.
About OpenPlay
OpenPlay is the music industry’s leading asset management platform, trusted by major labels and independents alike to manage their catalogs — it bridges the gap between content creation, metadata management, assets, and distribution. Designed and built from the ground up by music industry experts, OpenPlay services customers that manage the largest libraries of valuable media assets in the world. OpenPlay’s coupling of an intuitive interface with an extremely powerful enterprise toolset places it in a class above its competitors. With offerings for multiple different industry verticals, their entire suite of applications has solutions for every company no matter their size. Learn more about OpenPlay at openplay.co.