Tony Martin

Tony moved to Manchester from the sleepy seaside town of Torquay in 1981, where he became embroiled in the local music scene after becoming the lighting director of the now infamous Hacienda nightclub. Creating great light shows for most of the huge bands that played at the Hacienda at the time, he toured the world as a lighting director with many of these bands, but continued to work on his own music the whole time.

After a few fits and starts, Tony signed a publishing deal with Sony ATV and a record deal with Creation Records, which at the time was one of the most influential indie record companies in the world. In addition to recording a string of singles under various names, he also produced two albums of his own and became heavily involved with Primal Scream, creatively contributing to the seminal album, Screamadelica. He toured extensively with Primals, playing percussion, keyboards and all the digital sampling gear as well as providing back vocals.

Based on his involvement with digital technologies in the production of music, Tony began to see an emerging opportunity with music and the internet. He created a European funded research project studying the feasibility of storing digital audio in an online resource for the use of working musicians. The study was successful and formed a platform from which he launched his first digital design agency, Music Online, servicing the needs of the music industry. This was back in 1993.

As Music Online did more business with the larger record companies, Tony's strategic thinking began to get noticed and he was hired as the Director of Digital business at Sony Music. Within two years he had become Vice President of European business with responsibility for digital strategy across 24 countries.

Five years on, Tony took a sabbatical, learning to fly, sail and generally have fun before returning to digital business community as European Managing Director of video distribution company ROO Media (now KIT Digital) where he won some of the biggest deals for the company with News INternational in the UK and RCS Media in Italy.

He continues to occupy the cutting edge of digital business as European Managing Director of MediaMorph, a US based company that handles the digital supply chain for multiple blue chip companies including Warner Bros, Fox, HBO, Universal, Disney and many others.

Tony lives most of the year in the South of France.