NASHVILLE, TN (CelebrityAccess) — The Mechanical Licensing Collective announced a new round of hires for its senior leadership team with the addition of Kristen Johns as Chief Legal officer, Nathan Osher as Assistant General Counsel – Publisher Relations, and Andrew Mitchell as Head of Analytics and Automation.
“I am thrilled to welcome Kristen, Nathan and Andrew to The MLC’s growing team,” said Kris Ahrend, The MLC’s CEO. “Each of them possesses many years of experience in their respective areas of expertise, which will enable them to begin contributing immediately to the important work we are doing. All three are fully committed to serving our Members and fulfilling our important mission to ensure that our Members are paid properly.”
Johns comes to The MLC from Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP in Nashville where she was a partner at the firm. While at Waller, she advised clients on a variety of IP-related issues, including privacy laws, data protection and emerging technologies. While at the MLC, Johns will oversee strategic legal affairs, as well as managing the statutory blanket licensing process for digital service providers and overseeing compliance with statutory obligations.
Osher will serve as The MLC’s primary in-house advisor on music publishing and copyright issues and will oversee management and resolution of claims and litigation matters. He comes to the MLC with more than 2 decades of experience in the music publishing world. He most recently served as Senior Vice President of Legal & Business Affairs for Warner Chappell Music, Inc., the Los Angeles-based music publishing division of Warner Music Group, and was previously the General Counsel and Vice President of Business Affairs at Wixen Music Publishing, Inc.
Mitchell will oversee MLC’s analytics and automation activities, including the implementation of in-house business intelligence reporting as well as the development of analyzing data received from digital service providers. He will also take on the important task of managing The MLC’s manual sound recording and musical works matching processes.
A veteran of Nashville’s business community, Mitchell brings almost two decades of experience to bear on problems of analytics, and business intelligence. He comes to the MLC from Warner Music where he was the Vice President of Analytics & Process Automation, and previously spent a decade working in financial planning and analysis for Ingram Content Group.
