NEW YORK, Nov. 16, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- John Josephson, Chairman and CEO of SESAC, the only Music Rights Organization in the United States, has announced that Pat Collins has been named Vice Chairman of SESAC effective April 1, 2016. Collins, who currently serves as President and CEO of SESAC Performing Rights, will now begin to transition to his new role as a Senior Advisor to the Company and Vice Chairman. "My 20+ years with SESAC have been enormously rewarding," said Collins. "Having added Rumblefish and the Harry Fox Agency to our portfolio, SESAC is well positioned to deliver services across multiple rights categories and to bring unprecedented efficiencies to the licensing, collection and distribution processes for music royalties. I look forward to this phase of my professional and personal plan unfolding and am most grateful and appreciative to my colleagues at SESAC for including me in their amazing story of success." Executive Vice President Kelli Turner's responsibilities will be expanded to include oversight of Licensing and Royalty Distribution and Research Services in addition to Finance, Corporate Development, Human Resources and Information Technology. Executive Vice President Dennis Lord's responsibilities will be expanded to include Creative as well as Business Affairs. In addition, Christos Badavas, currently Associate General Counsel at HFA, will be moving to a corporate role at SESAC as Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel. Turner, Lord and Badavas will report directly to Josephson, as will SESAC's Rumblefish business unit, SESAC International and the Company's Corporate Relations department. "I am excited that Pat is taking on this new leadership position at SESAC," Josephson said. "Pat's ongoing role as Vice Chairman and Senior Advisor will allow him to contribute his many years of senior management experience and expansive knowledge of music licensing to inform and direct corporate goals and strategies for SESAC's continued benefit." During Collins' tenure as President and CEO, the company has emerged as a leader in music rights while experiencing exponential market share growth. In recent years, SESAC has signed the catalogs of a number of the biggest names in music, including Mariah Carey, Green Day, Zac Brown, Nikki Sixx, Robert Johnson, Charli XCX, George Clinton and Kesha and many others. In 2009, Collins was honored with the 2009 Sage Award during the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and Young Professionals Third Annual Nashville Emerging Leader Awards. The award is given to a top Nashville leader who has made an impact on the city's young professional demographic. Collins is a past president of Nashville's Leadership Music as well as a former member of the Leadership Music Board, Country Music Association Board, and YMCA Board. He is involved with numerous music business management initiatives and legislative matters regarding intellectual property. Collins is a graduate of the prestigious Leadership Nashville program. ABOUT SESAC SESAC is the only Music Rights Organization in the United States, serving both music users and creators with music licensing services that utilize sophisticated information technology and data science in order to provide timely, efficient royalty collection and distribution. SESAC is unique in its ability to offer singular licenses for the works of its affiliated writers and publishers that aggregate both performance and mechanical rights in order to drive greater efficiency in licensing for music users, as well as enhanced value for music creators and publishers. SESAC's Performing Rights subsidiary is the second oldest and most progressive PRO in the U.S., the only PRO to pay monthly radio royalties and was the first PRO to pay songwriters and publishers for live performances in venues of any size. Its affiliate roster continues to grow, with recent signings such as Green Day, Mariah Carey, Zac Brown, Kesha, Charli XCX and Nikki Sixx joining established affiliates such as Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Antebellum and the Kurt Cobain estate. Following the acquisition of the Harry Fox Agency, the leading U.S. Mechanical Rights Organization, SESAC's Rumblefish subsidiary, a leader in music micro-licensing, was merged with HFA's Slingshot business unit under the Rumblefish brand. This powerful combination drives value for creators and users of music by delivering a comprehensive digital rights management platform designed to simplify the administration of musical compositions and master recordings, monetize network platforms such as YouTube and provide license verification services utilizing its RADKey® technology. SESAC has offices in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Portland, San Francisco and London.
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