Shira Gans is the Senior Executive Director of Policy and Programs at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. Among her many accomplishments in this role, she leads NYC’s music industry economic development portfolio, founded the annual NY Music Month (June) that reaches 1M+ with 100+ partners and $1M in grants, and developed the first NYC Office of Nightlife providing critical support for the city’s nighttime economy.

Cliff Chenfeld was co-founder and CEO of Razor & Tie, an independent music company that included a label, a music publishing company and the kids’ audio brand Kidz Bop. After leading the company for 25 years, he sold it to Concord in 2018. Since then, he's become a partner in several music festivals, has Executive Produced several feature length films and is the host of the radio show Modern Sounds on which airs on a variety of NPR platforms.

The Smartest People In The Room^® is a series of one-on-one conversations between music industry executives and personalities hosted by Tom Truitt, Managing Director of the Music & Live Entertainment practice. These hour long conversations draw an audience of hundreds and feature every type of global music industry executive, including agents, managers, attorneys, business managers, promoters, publishers, working musicians, songwriters. The audience is global, with strong concentration in music business centers like New York City, Los Angeles, Nashville, London, Toronto, San Francisco, Austin and more.

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