BeatBread is bringing on advisers from Meta, Suno and other music industry experts as its new CEO, Andreea Gleeson, shapes the indie music financing platform’s future, the company said on Thursday (Nov. 12).
The advisory board will include Scott Sellwood, Meta’s director of music business development; Jeremy Sirota, Suno’s chief commercial officer; Johan Ahlström, CEO/co-founder of Kobalt Capital, originally the investment arm of Kobalt; Oana Ruxandra, formerly the investments and partnerships lead for Warner Music Group and now CEO/founder of PopHatch; and Spotify’s former global head of music publishing, Adam Parness.
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BeatBread has had a challenging year since the death of its founder and CEO, Peter Sinclair, in 2025. Former TuneCore CEO Gleeson says the advisory group will bring its expertise to help guide beatBread’s thinking on new, more flexible advance and loan products, long-term strategy and market positioning, as the company faces increased competition for providing advances.
“Independent artists, songwriters and music companies are building increasingly sophisticated businesses, but the financial tools available to them haven’t always kept pace,” said Gleeson, who was installed as beatBread’s CEO in September. “I’m excited to have [the advisory board’s] experience and perspectives to help us think through what’s next for beatBread.”
Founded in 2020 to issue capital to independent artists, labels and songwriters who want to maintain ownership of their music, beatBread says it has issued around $100 million in advances through some 2,000 transactions with creators. The company raised $124 million last year in credit and equity capital from Citi, longtime investor Deciens Capital and others to scale the company’s AI-enhanced underwriting technology, chordCashAI, internationally.
In March, beatBread brought on Jameson Toole as board adviser on AI and machine learning. Toole previously was a staff machine‑learning engineer at Spotify and co‑founder of Fritz AI.
