ABOUT
Joe Aboud is a music executive at the intersection of artist development, marketing, and commerce. His artist services and management company, 444 Sounds, oversees strategy & promotion for record labels, distributors, artist managers, and both signed and independent artists of all genres. Here, the Billboard PRIDE List honoree has worked with companies like Warner Records, Sony, Concord, AWAL, Vydia, and Nickelodeon, along with developing acts and household names like ADÉLA, Brooke Candy, JORDY, P1Harmony, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Tyga.
Prior, Aboud served as Vice President at independent label HITCO, leading marketing and streaming for artists such as 2x GRAMMY Award-Winner SAINt JHN, Jennifer Lopez, and the Dalai Lama (yes, you read that correctly), before guiding the label’s catalog through its acquisition by Concord Music Group. Before that, he spent more than three years at Atlantic Records managing marketing campaigns for artists including Joel Corry, Anitta, Clean Bandit, Skrillex, and David Guetta, and began his career on Apple Music’s Artist & Label Relations team during the service’s launch
PANELS
Future-Proof: Next Gen Leaders on the Music Industry of 2036
Meet some of the music industry’s brightest next-generation leaders — executives already running departments, building companies and helping shape what comes next. They’re navigating change in real time, embracing shifts others are still debating and bringing a distinctly different perspective to the business.
What are they seeing from their peers, teams and the marketplace? What’s working, what isn’t, and which emerging ideas have staying power — or are simply hype? Looking ten years ahead, they’ll tackle the bigger question: what will the music business actually look like in 2036?
Come for the predictions — and leave with a clearer sense of what it may take to future-proof a career, a company and an industry.
Thursday, October 15, 2026, 11:00 AM