Many years of working within the record industry has taught Jack Carton well. He has had the opportunity to work at big firms which have many indie labels under their belt or with a mid-sized label that works with many distributors and outlets. Mr. Carton has been in various significant advisory roles to Presidents and CEOs of the companies for which he has worked giving him the kind of insights that transcend the traditional finance role. He has been a senior member of management teams for over 15 years.
While at RCA, he was a player in the creation of RCA/Ariola, the subsequent acquisition of the company by the German mega-media conglomerate Bertelsmann, and the creation of BMG Music. At BMG Distribution, he was the financial liaison who oversaw the move of the warehouse and order service functions from Indianapolis to Greenville, South Carolina. Mr. Carton evaluated over 30 potential deals per year at BMG ranging from $200 thousand to $10 million. Amongst one of his successful projects was the partnership, which brought the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack-one of the most successful soundtracks of all times. Dirty Dancing created a franchise that generated hundreds of millions of dollars to BMG/RCA. One negotiation, Carton explained, required partnering with Business Affairs, senior management and talent representatives.
Mr. Carton then came to Loud Records/Relativity Entertainment (a division of Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.) as Vice President/CFO of Finance, Administration and Production. In his six years there he honed his negotiating skills in talent acquisition. He continued to evaluate deals and successfully added 15 to $20 million in revenue to the Company per year. While working for this $100+ million subsidiary/joint venture with his 15 person staff, Mr. Carton also developed new marketing systems that provided timely information to senior management that increased efficiency of the production department and created savings in manufacture of finished goods and promotional materials. These programs saved over $2 m marketing costs. Mr. Carton was responsible for heading a multi-discipline transition team of Senior Sony Music executives which merged an internal and external operation together. All accounting, financial and administration systems of these operations assimilated into the Sony Music structure in thirty days with no downtime.
As The CFO of the American side to British based music and DVD label, Eagle Rock (a $35 million US operation), Mr. Carton developed an appreciation for one cornerstone of the film industry--Video and DVD distribution--because the label specialized in a line of live concert films that were produced first for television then DVD release. Mr. Carton negotiated the video rights for both existing and new projects and also played an integral role in line producing the Usher and The Pretenders DVD concerts in Orlando and Los Angeles respectively. Supervising a staff of nine, he again created a new marketing system which tracked almost $8 million in costs. Mr. Carton also reviewed all existing vendor relationships, cutting costs by 10%. He also analyzed external distribution relationships for both the audio and video divisions and increased revenue there as well. His media licensing efforts again generated income from film and advertising where no such revenue stream existed before. As another source of income, Mr. Carton helped close a television syndication deal worth over $4 million.
Mr. Carton holds a MBA in Finance from Temple University and BS in Economics and Business from Juniata College.