TheBridge profile: Gebre Waddell

Name: Gebre Waddell

Current city: Memphis, TN

Current job: Chief Executive Officer, Soundways

Past job: McGraw-Hill Author, Mastering Engineer

Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? Tamp and Tap, Downtown Memphis

Q. Describe one way how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your new job. The thorough process and reflection from authoring my book gave powerful insight about the deepest pain points in the music industry and the underlying practical issues that held them in place. After founding Soundways, this gave a deep understanding of customer discovery responses, and how to create solutions that truly achieve problem-solution fit.

Q. Job advice in three words? Eradicate Painful Problems.

Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between politics and tech? We are experiencing the most active era for music industry legislation in our nation's history. The future is being shaped with The Music Modernization Act, the AMP act, the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, and others. Central to these efforts is the data about creative works, rights holders and their contributions. Soundways is leading the music industry data revolution, from collecting information throughout the creation process and delivering it to the listening public and deeper data to a range of backend systems. Together, politics and technology are revolutionizing the livelihood of music creators around the world.

Q. Most underrated virtue in an employee? Resourcefulness. In the information age, it is more powerful than ever.

Q. Favorite app? Asana's mobile app is really solid, tried all the project management apps and it was the only one that delivered completely for me.

Q. Favorite restaurant? Leonards BBQ in Memphis, in a city where BBQ is tradition, it's the original.

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