Strategic Operations for Music, Entertainment & AI

I help visionary founders, creators, and global rights-holders transform creative ambition into operational clarity, financial strength, and scalable systems.

Request an intro conversation

What I Do

I work at the intersection of creative vision and commercial execution, partnering with teams at moments of growth, transition, or complexity, including:

  • Founder-led companies preparing for fundraising or institutional capital

  • Established rights-holders professionalizing operations or modernizing infrastructure

  • Teams navigating rapid growth, restructuring, or asset sales

  • Businesses expanding internationally or evaluating strategic opportunities

Clients are often lean, ambitious, and operating in complex creative and commercial environments — where clarity, structure, and senior-level operational judgement are required.

My work spans

Operating Infrastructure

Defining vision, operating models, and organizational structure that support sustainable growth, including creative, rights and royalty infrastructure, process workflow, technology stacks, and office builds and physical infrastructure management.

Growth & Scaling

From Day 1 to global scale, leading systems and product strategy, driving international expansion, and executing on operational and strategic initiatives to drive growth across core businesses.

Financial & Valuation Advisory

Building financial and operating models, creating pitch decks, advising on and participating in fundraising rounds, performing fair-market valuations of businesses and IP, performing desktop audits, designing & managing royalty accounting and rights administration systems.

Fractional COO

Embedded leadership for founders who need senior operational expertise without full-time overhead — designing org structures, defining decision rights, managing delivery timelines, setting escalation paths and other cross-functional goals.

Who I Work With

I support founders, creators, and senior leadership teams across music, entertainment, and AI-enabled businesses.

This includes work with:

  • Record labels and recording rights owners

  • Music publishers and IP-centric businesses

  • Artist managers, business managers, attorneys, and management-led enterprises

  • Emerging tech companies across music, entertainment & AI

Select Consulting Clients

Past and Present

Previous Executive Roles

Artists & Catalogs
I’ve worked with

The Weeknd, Lorde, Diplo, DJ Mustard, Q-Tip, Duran Duran, Pharrell Williams, Living Colour, The Gershwin Estate, Paul McCartney, Timbaland, Christopher Cross, Run The Jewels, Daft Punk, Justice, The Prodigy, The Pixies, Pavement, Interpol, among many others

How I Work

I operate as a strategic advisor & fractional COO, embedded alongside founders and leadership teams.

The objective is clarity, structure, and momentum — without compromising creative control.

My approach is

Founder-aligned — direct, candid, and pragmatic — helping founders make clearer decisions faster, and translating creative vision into executable plans

Commercially fluent — deep experience across content creation, licensing and rights management, finance, and global operations

Execution-oriented — strategy tied to real-world constraints and outcomes, aligned with the realities founders face every day

Focused — a limited number of engagements to ensure greater depth, more meaningful impact, and faster support

Who I Am

A man with dark hair and a tan complexion, wearing a light grey button-up shirt and dark pants, stands against a white wall with his hands in his pockets, looking at the camera.

Photo:  Caity Krone

Rob Guthrie

20+ years as strategic operations executive, early key hire, and board member at leading independent music companies, with experience spanning content creation, IP management, systems & technology, business affairs, finance, international markets, and office infrastructure.

I’ve partnered with independent founders and globally recognized institutions alike — from pre-capital to $XOOM — helping visionary teams exceed strategic, operational, and profit goals.

Contact