Ruth Simmons - Managing Director

They say that you can take the girl out of science, but you can’t take the science out of the girl. After graduating as a scientist, Ruth decided to do a U turn in her career as a teacher to become a music consultant. For over 25 years, she has been constantly looking at ways to find solutions to using music in advertising and marketing. Ruth is a professional speaker and an acknowledged commentator on the art and science of music. She was nominated as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in recognition of her "out of the box" thinking about the ‘sound of the brand’; the role of music, and the impact that music has on consumer behaviour. She has been described by her peers as ‘a powerhouse, straight talking and passionate’ about what she does.

Thomas Wright - Operations Manager

Born in Paddington and now works near Paddington! Lives in South London and loves it. After a short spell as a Tape Op, Thomas joined the company to learn music licensing. Rose through the ranks to run the Rights Desk for 3 years and now after 15 years- yes 15 years, is responsible for the day to day running of the company - probably the only one that knows where everything is! Apart from his extraordinary tube map knowledge, he is also known for an amazing ability to recognise and remember everyone as they call, keeping things together, having a laugh and some extremely colourful language.

Brian Kelly - Creative Director

Brian was born in Dublin when life was grim, but people were happy. He is now living in London where people are grim, but life is happy. In the intervening years he has lived in both New York and Barcelona where people struggled to understand him, grim or happy. Brian has worked with sound for most of his life, (his interest being ignited at age 9 by his first Grundig tape recorder) beginning with recording stories for his sisters and culminating with his recent sound design work for film, television and the Web. While attending Art College, he quickly realised that a life of Letraset was not for him and headed to New York to study audio recording. Upon returning to Ireland he worked as a live sound engineer, before establishing & managing One Lazy Ear recording studio in Dublin for over 6 years. Brian recently completed a Masters in Sound Design at Bournemouth University and now works as the Creative Director at soundlounge where he endeavours to direct in a creative manner.

Daniel Payne - Rights Manager

Dan's music career began in the recording studios of deepest darkest Shoreditch, long before it became trendy Hoxton. After many an early start and long recording sessions (if only they could sing in tune!) he was promoted from number 1 tea maker to fully fledged mix engineer. Dan followed a natural progression to scruffy A&R scout for Universal Music Publishing, a job that took him up and down the country in search of new talent. He stayed with Universal for many years, moving up the ranks and honing his skills in both A&R and music synchronisation, also becoming a much snappier dresser in the process and allegedly growing up a bit.
 
He was eventually headhunted by Zomba Publishing and Jive Records during the glory years with Britney, Justin, N'Sync et al. One lazy sunny afternoon, drunk in a park, he and a friend decided to go travelling. A year and a very long hangover later, he'd seen the world and returned to England a changed man, and a little bit poorer. Dan then went to work with 365 Artist Management, one of Europe's leading Producer/Mixer management companies, and running Twenty-One studios.

Steve Strum - Financial Director

Born in Berkhampstead  - Married and lives In Chingford with Evelyn and Harry – the dog! Steve has spent the last 16 years keeping his eye on the books at soundlounge.  Loves golf – re-elected Captain for the second time last year. Played Tiger Woods and beat him. Unfortunately it was only on Playstation!

Sam Nicholson - Creative Assistant

Sam was born and bred in leafy South London and that’s where he remains to this day, wandering the streets of Clapham in search of a decent music venue (so far nothing) and surviving on the local fried pigeon and chips. After school, Sam decided to make his way in the media industry from the bottom, learning as he went, after having been scared away from university after a respectable three weeks by the prospect of actually writing an essay. The period that followed was spent trawling the streets of London in search of work which took the form of everything from building and bar work to music videos and post production graphics. Finally, in summer 2007, through blind persistence and a little bit of luck Sam found himself at soundlounge. Flowers, candles laughter – what more could any self respecting bloke ask for?

Hayley Rogers – Rights Assistant

Hayley is the newest addition to the soundlounge team. Originally from the wilds of West Sussex, she abandoned her country roots to study Music at King’s College London. After finally emerging from the Classical music closet, she undertook a work experience placement at a small music consultancy for advertising in the depths of Soho followed by an internship at Warner Music as a Licensing Assistant. When finances could no longer support any further months of unpaid work and she was on the verge of becoming a professional busker, she landed her role at soundlounge as Rights Assistant where she is able to both nurture her passion for music and hone her selective hearing skills in a majority male company!