Panos Panay

Panos is the Vice President for Innovation and Strategy at Berklee College of Music, the Managing Director of the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE) and a passionate entrepreneur, educator and startup mentor.

As the founder of Sonicbids, he created the leading platform for emerging artists to connect with music promoters, resulting in over 1 million gigs booked in over 80 countries around the world. He led the company as CEO for 13 years, from its inception until after its successful acquisition in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners.

Panos is also the co-founder of the Open Music Initiative, which has brought together over 170 leading music, media, technology industry organizations and academic institutions to create an open protocol for uniform identification of musical rights owners and creators.

At Berklee, his work and approach to entrepreneurial and innovation pedagogy builds heavily on the concepts of music thinking as a catalyst for innovation and creative breakthroughs in business, life and art; and has spearheaded multi-disciplinary collaborations between Berklee and MIT Media Lab; the design firm IDEO; and Brown University.

Awards include: Fast Company’s “Fast 50” honor; Inc Magazine’s “Inc 500”; Mass Hi-Tech All Stars; Berklee College’s Distinguished Alumnus Award; and Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40”, BostInno’s 50 on Fire and Boston Globe’s 2017 Game Changers. Sonicbids and Panos were also profiled in a chapter in the Financial Times-published book “Outsmart” by best-selling author Jim Champy.

He writes frequently about startups and entrepreneurship for blogs and publications such as Forbes, WSJ Accelerators and Fast Company; and guest lectures and speaks at many universities and events around the world.