Bob Roback is leaving his role as CEO of Ingrooves Music Group seven years after joining the distribution and services company, MBW can reveal.
In that time, Roback has led Ingrooves through significant revenue growth, as well as global expansion into territories including Australia, Brazil, Japan, India, South Africa, and Spain.
One defining moment for Roback’s tenure as Ingrooves boss was the sale of the Los Angeles-headquartered company to Universal Music Group in 2019. (UMG was previously a minority shareholder in Ingrooves.)
In a memo sent to his staff this week and obtained by MBW, Roback said: “[There] is no easy way to say that the time has come for me to pass the Ingrooves CEO torch and pursue new challenges. The same entrepreneurial spirit that brought me to Ingrooves is now drawing me to a new path.”
Added Roback: “I have no doubt that Ingrooves will continue to succeed and innovate beyond expectations. I am proud of our team and grateful for all of the contributions you have each made.”
“[There] is no easy way to say that the time has come for me to pass the Ingrooves CEO torch and pursue new challenges. The same entrepreneurial spirit that brought me to Ingrooves is now drawing me to a new path.”
Bob Roback
Roback confirmed that as he transitions out of the CEO position in the months ahead, Ingrooves’ CFO, Jeff Cuatto, will head up an interim leadership team.
Roback noted in his memo: “UMG is conducting an executive search for my replacement and remains committed to Ingrooves, our mission, and our global team.”
Roback thanked Universal Music Group’s Chairman/CEO, Sir Lucian Grainge, as well as UMG’s EVP/CFO, Boyd Muir, for showing “tremendous support of our global mission to work with the best independent labels and artists in the world and to pursue unprecedented innovation in harnessing data and AI to pioneer new marketing methods”.
Under Roback’s leadership, Ingrooves – which works with independent labels and artists – has made significant investments in proprietary technology.
Two years ago, the company was granted a US patent for AI-driven marketing tech.
This year, it won another patent for marketing tech that it built in-house; Ingrooves claims this tech “improves upon [our] ability to discover and deliver high-value streaming audiences”.
Said Roback in his memo to staff this week: “When I joined Ingrooves as your CEO in 2015, I was excited to build a differentiated, strategic growth partner for independent labels and artists. The industry challenge then (and now) was for artists and labels to efficiently and effectively spend their time and money to break through the ocean of available content and build lasting audiences.
“As a music and technology entrepreneur, I was drawn to this opportunity for Ingrooves to innovate and become the industry leader in providing real value to a rapidly expanding market.
“Our stellar financial results, client base, and platform engagement metrics validate our strategy, and I am extremely proud of our work together.”
Bob Roback
“Over nearly seven years, we have accomplished so much. We made early, substantial investments into data science, and built a world-class team of experts in all departments across the organization. Our acquisition by UMG in 2019 enabled us to ramp up our pace of global expansion and accelerate our creation of pioneering marketing methods to help our labels and artists become even more successful.
“Our stellar financial results, client base, and platform engagement metrics validate our strategy, and I am extremely proud of our work together.”
Prior to joining Ingrooves / Isolation Network in 2015, Bob Roback was President of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
A serial entrepreneur, in 1994, Roback founded LAUNCH Media with Dave Goldberg – one of the world’s first digital music enterprises. The company was acquired by Yahoo! Inc. in 2001.
As part of the sale, Roback became Head of Music at Yahoo!, overseeing its global music operations until 2007.
After Yahoo! he became Co-Founder and CEO of Dashbox, a workflow management system and marketplace for music licensing. Dashbox was acquired by FilmTrack in 2014.Music Business Worldwide