The Wall Street Journal calls Gerd ‘one of the leading Media Futurists in the World’. Co-author of the influential book ‘The Future of Music’ (2005, Berklee Press), of ‘Music2.0’ (2008) and ‘The End of Control‘, Gerd's background is in music; in 1985 he won the Quincy Jones Award and subsequently graduated from Boston's Berklee College of Music (1987). Since 2002, following a decade as digital media entrepreneur and start-up CEO, Gerd speaks at conferences and seminars around the globe on the Future of Media, Content, Technology, Business, Advertising, Telecom, Communications and Culture. Gerd's keynotes, presentations and think-tanks are renowned for his hard-hitting and provocative yet inspiring, motivational style. With more than 1’300 engagements in 43 countries since 2003, Gerd has addressed over 150'000 professionals, and is considered a key influencer. His diverse client list includes Nokia, Google, Sony-BMG, Telkom Indonesia, Siemens, Kuoni, RTL, ITV, the BBC, France Telecom/Orange, Deutsche Telekom, The Financial Times, MTN, DDB, Omnicom, the European Commission, Nokia Siemens Networks and many others. Gerd is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (London), Visiting Professor at FDC Fundação Dom Cabral (Brasil), and resides in Basel, Switzerland.

Gerd's keynotes, speeches, presentations and think-tanks are renowned for his hardhitting and provocative yet inspiring, personal and motivational style. With over 1’300 engagements in 43 countries since 2003, Gerd has addressed over 150.000 executives and professionals, and is considered a key influencer. His diverse client list includes Nokia, NSN, Amdocs, The Guardian, Google, Sony-BMG, Telkom Indonesia, Siemens, RTL, ITV, the BBC, France Telecom, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, MTN, The Financial Times, DDB / TribalDDB, Ogilvy, Omnicom, the European Commission and many others. Gerd is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (London), a member of the World Future Society, and a visiting professor at the Fundação Dom Cabral in Brazil. A native German, he now resides in Basel, Switzerland.

For 11 years Mark was a Vice President and Research Director at Jupiter Research (later acquired by Forrester Research). In his role as a music analyst and senior research manager, Mark worked right across the digital music value chain, with all the leading digital music services and technology companies, the major record labels, rights bodies, retailers, hardware companies and telcos.

Mark is routinely quoted and interviewed by top tier media (TV, radio, print and online) and speaks at leading music events such as Midem, Popkom, Canadian Music Week, London Calling, In The City.

Mark is a classically trained musician and is in the third generation of guitar players in his family (currently working on gently prodding his children to becoming the fourth).  Mark also has a small, fully digital, recording studio which he uses to make lots of not so subtle bleeps, beats and squeeks and ‘Back in the day’ he had a three single record deal and had his music played on BBC Radio 1.