SESAC Rights Management, Chairman and CEO
John has served as Chairman and CEO of SESAC, a leading music licensing and rights management company, since 2014. He has been an investor in, and director of, the company since 1992, following its acquisition by Allen & Company Inc. in partnership with an investor group. SESAC was acquired by affiliates of The Blackstone Group in February 2017. Blackstone’s acquisition of SESAC was the first investment as part of its Core Equity strategy, which is specifically designed to hold investments for much longer periods of time than traditional private equity funds, with an initial target of 10-15 years or more. Previously, John was a Managing Director at Allen & Company LLC, where he worked with companies in the media, entertainment and consumer internet and technology industry verticals including The News Corporation, Time Warner, Sony Corporation of America, AOL, Viacom and The Chernin Group.
John currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Paley Center for Media, the Dean’s Advisory Board of the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University and the New York Advisory Board of Teach for America. John is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Recording Academy, the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.
John received a Master of Business Administration degree with high distinction in 1987 from Harvard Business School, where he was elected a George F. Baker Scholar. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, from Cornell University in 1983.