Utopia strengthens product capabilities with key hires of Jonathan Abon and Jordan Gremli

15 March 2022 - Press release

ABON AND GREMLI ARE PRODUCT LEADERS WITH A PROVEN TRACK RECORD OF DELIVERING CUTTING-EDGE SOLUTIONS AT SCALE ACROSS MUSIC AND TECH 

 

• Jonathan Abon brings two decades’ tech engineering experience, he joins as VP Product, Distribution Services from multinational mapping location company HERE Technologies 

• Jordan Gremli has rich experience working in the Music Industry, including Spotify and Sofar Sounds, he joins as VP Product, Creator Services from DICE where he was Vice President, Artist Development 

• Abon and Gremli will build upon Utopia’s best-in-class data Platform to scale "Fair Pay for Every Play" throughout the global music ecosystem

 

Utopia Music, the Swiss Music fintech company, announced the hires of Jonathan Abon as VP Product, Distribution Services and Jordan Gremli as VP Product, Creator Services. Abon and Gremli are product leaders with extensive experience in the Music and Tech sectors. Both will report to Nicholas Goubert, Chief Product Officer. 

The hires signify a step change in Utopia’s journey, innovating new and supercharging its existing product capabilities. Abon and Gremli will build upon Utopia’s best-in-class data Platform, currently with 213 billion Music consumption data points, to scale "Fair Pay for Every Play" throughout the global Music ecosystem by meeting the needs of Creators and their teams, Rights Holders, Collection Societies, Investors, and other Music Industry stakeholders.

“Utopia’s uniqueness stems from its Music and Tech DNA and our ability to deliver innovative solutions at scale,” said Nicholas Goubert, Chief Product Officer, “Jonathan and Jordan are highly experienced in their respective fields and their blended experience will enhance our ability to deliver cutting-edge products for our customers, and further position Utopia as the number one Growth Partner for the entire Music Industry.” 

Jonathan Abon is a B2B product manager leader with over two decades of experience in technology based products. Based in Chicago, Abon will help to mature the product management organization of Utopia’s Distribution Services business unit. Abon joins from HERE Technologies, the world’s leading location platform company, where he was VP Product Management, Platform Organization. There, Abon built a global location-focused platform that combined a development environment and a marketplace used by customers in automotive, transport & logistics, supply chain, and infrastructure planning markets.

“Music and technology have always played a major part in my life,” said Abon. "My career led me down the path of engineering and product management where I developed the skills to scale products and businesses. The opportunity to join Utopia fits perfectly with my past experience and, importantly, brings me back to the Music.”

Abon’s previous roles include Senior Director, Product Management, at Saggezza where he productized a Big Data analytics platform, penetrating telco, financial services, healthcare, and retail. Abon was also an Engineer and Group Product Manager at Tellabs. His background includes digital signal processing, neural networking, machine learning, artificial intelligence, Lean Six Sigma. He is a product management certified practitioner.

Jordan Gremli has extensive experience working for Creators. From Berlin, he will lead the product organization for Utopia’s Creator Services Business Unit. He joins from DICE where he was VP, Artist Development, responsible for creating and managing all artist-centric programs and products on the DICE platform, including live streaming and merch. 

"Artists and their teams deserve access to clear, actionable data and easy-to-use tools and services that can help develop their fan bases and their careers,” said Gremli. “I can't wait to work with the super-team at Utopia to build best-in-class products that give them just that.”

Prior to DICE, Gremli spent nearly eight years at Spotify where he launched and managed Fans First, a program to help artists develop their fan bases by allowing them to reward their biggest fans with exclusive ticket, merch, and live offers. To date, Fans First has helped artists sell over $100m worth of tickets to their fans. Gremli also played a key role in the launch of the first iteration of Spotify for Artists, Spotify's self-serve artist portal, based directly on feature and data feedback from artists and their teams. He also served as Head of Content & Artist Programming at Sofar Sounds and Program Director at SiriusXM Radio. Gremli graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 and currently serves as Chair of the Alumni Board of Directors of the Cornell Media Guild, which includes the student-run radio station and record label.