Ned Sherman
CEO & Publisher
As Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Media Wire, Inc., Ned Sherman works at the center of the rapidly growing digital media industry, where he brokers relationships and keeps a tab on the most important developments shaping the industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Ned Sherman is more than the average pundit: He is an attorney and has an inside grasp of what is happening.” Ned is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been quoted and profiled in publications including The Wall Street Journal, American Lawyer, LA Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, EXPO, The Washington Times and Billboard and interviewed and featured on C-SPAN and National Public Radio (NPR). Ned currently sits on the boards of The Technology Council of Southern California and The NAB Show Advisory Council and the Mobile Excellence Awards. He is founder and creator of the Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards, which he sold to VNU/Nielsen in 2006, and co-founder and co-creator of Digital Entertainment World (DEW), a joint venture with IDG World Expo.
Ned is active in global media affairs, representing clients across the world. As attorney and global artist manager, he helped launch the solo career of K-POP artist Jay Park negotiating deals with Warner Music and LEVI Strauss among others. As advisor and consultant, he has lead a delegation of technology, media and investment executives to Luxembourg and represented the governments of Hong Kong and Canada on projects. He is also owner and publisher of the Canadian Media Wire news service, has keynoted at MIPTV in Cannes, France, served as a judge for the O2 Digital Media Awards in Ireland, moderated at the annual MIDEM Global Music Exposition in Cannes, France, and chaired the Digital Strategies Conference @ Canadian Music Week in Toronto.
In addition to his role at Digital Media Wire, he runs DMW Hexagon, a consulting and advisory practice, selectively serving early-stage emerging-growth clients, and has been a senior advisor to a venture capital firm. Ned is a member of the California bar association and practices entertainment and corporate law representing a variety of clients in entertainment, media and finance ventures. Before co-founding Digital Media Wire, Ned was a founding member of the iLaw Group in the Entertainment Department at Loeb & Loeb LLP in Los Angeles, where he handled licensing and corporate transactions and financings for media and entertainment clients including Universal Studios and MGM and launched dozens of Internet and new media start-ups. He has counseled company founders from initiation of a business plan to seed, angel, venture capital and later-stage private financings and managed all legal aspects of Internet clients from corporate organization, stockholder relationships, board compositions and dynamics, stock option plans, capital raising and security regulatory matters, Internet law issues, trademark, copyright, content and technology licensing, advertising and privacy issues.
From 1997 to 1999, he practiced in the Los Angeles office of Mayer, Brown & Platt where his practice centered on representation of U.S. and foreign banks in syndicated lending transactions and securitization matters. From 1995 to 1997, he was a foreign lawyer at Nishimura & Partners in Tokyo, Japan, where his practice involved international mergers and acquisitions and the formation of technology and entertainment joint venture companies. He also served as President of the Roppongi Bar Association in Tokyo, the leading association for foreign lawyers working in Japan.
Sherman is co-author of publisher of Millennials and the Digital Entertainment Age, A Sourcebook for Consumer Marketers (2008), which provides practical information, case studies and strategic advice for consumer marketers focused on Millennials or Gen Y (those born roughly between 1981 and 2001).
In 2000, he was an Adjunct Lecturer of Law at Tulane University Law School where he taught an entertainment law seminar. Ned is a graduate of Brown University (AB, with honors, 1990) and the University of Texas School of Law (JD, 1994) where he was Chief Articles & Notes Editor of the Texas International Law Journal and winner of the national Scribes Awards for his article on the human rights ramifications of U.S. reservations to international death penalty treaties.
Ned is active in alumni affairs for Brown University and is past Southern California Chair for Brown University’s Alumni Interview Program. He has traveled extensively from Europe to Asia to South America to Northern Africa. Ned is married and lives with his wife, son and daughter in Los Angeles, California.
