Who We Are

Vickie Nauman
Founder & CEO, CrossBorderWorks

Vickie Nauman specializes in the intersection between technology and music, focused on music licensing, products, relationships and rights; helping grow companies; and global strategic development.  She is Founder and CEO of the Los Angeles-based boutique consulting and advisory firm CrossBorderWorks and has an ambitious portfolio of forward-thinking companies in gaming, tech, consumer electronics, finance and music since 2014.  

A digital music pioneer and Web3 enthusiast, Nauman worked on licensing and product for one of the first legal digital services MusicNet (RealNetworks JV), led strategic partnerships for connected device company Sonos, started and ran the US business for global music platform 7digital, and did digital music business in Europe and China as a consultant. She built one of the first DMCA-compliant services at taste-making Seattle station KEXP and has an MBA through the London School of Economics, NYU-Stern, and HEC-Paris, in the executive program TRIUM. 

She is an advisor to some of the world’s most innovative companies, including those in gaming, M&A, platforms, apps, rights-related, strategic growth, and early-stage startups in music/tech.  Client base includes Beat Saber/Oculus, Ubisoft, Niantic, Pixelynx, Downtown Holdings, Spotify, Warner Music Group, and more listed on LinkedIn.

Deborah Mannis-Gardner
Owner/President, DMG Clearances, Inc.

Deborah Mannis-Gardner — the “Queen of Sample Clearance” according to Billboard, Forbes, Midem, Music Week, Okayplayer, Variety, and more — is the go-to expert for global music rights clearances. Since starting DMG Clearances, Inc. in 1996, Deborah has cleared releases for artists including Drake, Tyler the Creator, DJ Khaled, Eminem, Justin Bieber, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z, John Legend, Megan Thee Stallion, Big Sean, J. Cole, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and more.

Deborah has also handled music clearances for metaverse platforms such as Meta and Roblox, including a live concert from Post Malone; films by Martin Scorsese, The Coen Brothers, and Richard Linklater; TV series on networks such as HBO, Netflix, and Paramount+; ad campaign clearances for Google and Kmart; podcast music clearances for Rick Rubin and Dave Chappelle; video game clearances for Rockstar Games franchises “Grand Theft Auto”and “Red Dead Redemption”; Grand Rights clearance for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway sensation “Hamilton” and for its release on Disney+; and political campaign clearances for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign - to name a few. 

Stacey Haber
Lawyer & Founder of The Music Firm & CLO of SyncLodge

Once tagged by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the music industry’s leading experts, Stacey has 30+ years’ experience as a music industry executive, songwriter, lawyer,
theatre/film producer, actor in London and New York.
The hard work and vast experience paid off in November 2022 when Deborah Mannis-Gardner asked her to join DMG as a consultant. Happy and proud doesn’t even begin to
describe how she feels.

Stacey delivered her first webinar on music rights in NFTs and metaverses this year and is part of the group drafting the licensing agreements and royalty formulae for Web3 music licensing with Deborah - Web3 Music Rights Group and Register One DAO.

She’s also CLO of SyncLodge Ltd, Founder of SHHH Media, Inside Baseball Music Publishing, FoxPin Artist Management and The Music Firm, and Co-Founder of IAFAR Ltd. She continues work in music, film, TV, and theatre.

As a legal and business affairs consultant she advises multiplatinum superstars to emerging artists and has previously advised billion pound brands in the use of music in their marketing and advertising, and global icons in their contract negotiations as part of two well-known but no longer existing City firms.
 

Brian Blatz
Music & Web3 Entertainment Attorney Granderson Des Rochers

Brian Blatz represents a variety of companies within the entertainment and music industries with an emphasis on emerging technology companies that incorporate music and related rights into their businesses. Prior to joining Granderson Des Rochers, Brian was General Counsel for Triller, a video-sharing social networking platform with 65 million monthly active users that allows creation and sharing of short-form videos, including videos set to, or automatically synchronized to music using AI technology.

Jessica Vaughn
Head of Sync, Venice Music & President, Head Bitch Music

Jessica Vaughn is a rarity: a songwriter who understands artists, an artist who understands business,

and an entertainment industry executive who understands––and empathizes with––it all. Jessica was still a teenager when she first turned heads as Charlotte Sometimes, a recording artist whose full-length debut on Geffen Records found a spot on the Heatseekers Chart and prompted VH1 to name her a “You Oughta Know Artist.” Later, Jessica became a fan and critic favorite on Season 2 of The Voice and inked a deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, before moving on from her Charlotte Sometimes persona altogether to write and perform under a new alias, LACES. Still defined by the honesty and cashmere voice that originally set her apart, Jessica’s work as LACES is subtly brilliant alt-pop for adults. Under her own name and as founder and leader of multi-service hive Head Bitch

Music, Jessica continues to pen songs for other recording artists; write, produce, and sing music for Hasbro cartoons such as Jem & the Holograms, Baby Alive, Littlest Pet Shop, Equestria Girls, and more; and secure placements on series and specials on the CW, Netflix, ABC, and others, as well as films. Jessica lives and works in Los Angeles.

Jess Furman
Chief Growth Officer, Tribes Studios

Named one of Billboard Magazine’s Top-40 Industry Shaping Executives, Jess is a creative strategist with a proven track record spanning across multiple sectors including New Media, Web3, film, music, business & non-profit. 

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Within 2 years of establishing her custom house, Sound Revolver went on to win a Telly Award, Clio Award and RIAA Certified Gold. In addition to working on Oscar/Academy-Award winning campaigns within Film, Jess assisted in overseeing the transition of production and operations at BuzzFeed Motion Pictures as they reorganized following a 250 Million dollar investment by NBC Universal.

In her SVP role for Big Noise Music Group, Jess established and launched a licensing division from the ground up, growing sales 2-3x from start up through current year 3 with gross negotiated licenses slated to hit 3M by end of 2022.

A staunch advocate for creatives, as the youngest board member of SONA (Songwriters of North America), Jess assisted in restructuring the organization, which tripled its donations received and increased programming offered by 5x just the following year. Amidst the COVID-19 shutdown, Jess co-founded and oversaw the roll out for a SONA grant program for songwriters, which will have given out over 400K in financial aid to songwriters by fall of 2020 via major donations from SONY/ATV, Spotify and Amazon.

Jess currently sits on the board(s) of FEME (Female Executives in Media and Entertainment), EOT (Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow), Motion Creative and is the co-lead of Web3 Advisors & Network for Blu3 DAO (a Web3 community aimed at providing resources to onboard more women & non-binary into the Web3 space); Previous Boards - SONA (Songwriters of North America) and co-founder of The Songwriter Grant Fund.

(**Current ETHAmsterdam multiple sponsor winner for co-creation of the VR-enabled Web3 onboarding multi-player metaverse, TheDAOVerse)

Donavan Brown
Sr. Community Manager Venice Music

Donavan grew up traveling the world as a kid, being the son of a Navy Diver. Through this, he developed a love for music, and culture, and experienced people from diverse backgrounds around the world. A Michigan State Alumni, he has worked in the music industry for 9 years starting as a Dj and A&R at EDM.com, which lead him to manage and develop artists and build labels, and tech startups. During his previous role with Shines Creative, he worked on building the music app RYSE, where they grew the community of musicians and industry professionals from a few hundred to over 30,000 users. In this role, he also worked on the artist relations team at Roland Lifestyle. He is currently the Sr. Community Manager at Venice Music, a music technology company offering a full range of artist services, with the goal of empowering independent artists & entrepreneurs such as Kaytramine, Sonder, Thuy & Kota the Friend. Donavan worked with the Venice team to build the Venice Music Collective membership, which was recently launched with the goal of being the preeminent music industry ecosystem for independence.

Mare Andrews
Director Creative & Marketing, Truly Music

Mare Andrews is a sync licensing professional and songwriter. Graduating from Thornton’s Master MUIN program in 2020, Mare quickly learned the opportunities sync licensing brought to writers and artists alike and went on to Big Noise Music Group as a Sync Manager. She assisted in securing placements for bands The Used, MOD SUN, Goldfinger, The Wrecks and more across all medias; TV, Film, Video Games, Ads, and Custom Projects. She succeeded in landing spots with T-Mobile, Riot Games, ABC, NBC and more. Under Big Noise’s custom house, Sound Revolver, she assisted in music directing the Discovery Plus series The Book of Queer, and well as oversaw numerous custom projects with Ridell Helmets, Viacom, MTV, and Netflix. Mare recently joined the team at Truly Music, where she’s now Director of Creative and Marketing, continuing to represent artists in the sync space, such as Marshmello, Judas Priest, Red Leather, and more. Outside of her day to day, Mare is a songwriter, coordinator for The Web 3 Music Rights Group, and project manager for an upcoming music Web3 / NFT project.