“Thinking Beyond The Cube…” it’s more than just a tag-line; it’s making great strides in an innovative and cost-effective way. For music industry professional, Jim Markunas, it’s a way of life.
An asset to any company, Jim will help ignite your projects, because Jim is an innovator. He is grounded. Jim is an expert at operating online campaigns on a shoestring budget and has the uncanny ability to find innovative new revenue streams for intellectual property in today’s struggling music industry.
In his spare time, Jim is the founder and editor of CWG Magazine, handles online sales/promotion for the Miles Davis Estate, develops new media income plans for major record labels, and writes a newsletter about the future of the music business.
Having a decade of experience under his belt, Jim got his start shamelessly promoting local bands at the age of 15. His passion for music and knack for promotion built him a solid reputation on the college music scene, and landed him a gig working on a state-wide advertising campaign for the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Gaining his own local buzz for promoting bands, shock-rock outfit, Skank, recruited Jim to handle their publicity and street marketing. Skank’s notoriety landed Jim an internship with the ADA-distributed Minty Fresh Records. On the advice of his boss at Minty Fresh, Jim moved to Los Angeles, to get his start in the West-Coast music industry.
After a few months in L.A., Jim handled personal appearances for music industry veterans Mick Fleetwood and Nicholas Gunn, and promoted the late James Brown’s last concert appearance.
After the success of Nicholas Gunn’s “Beyond Grand Canyon Tour,” Jim was tapped by Gorgeous PR to head their New Media division. Helping to create the department from scratch, Jim wasted no time in securing a weekly TV show for Myspace celebrity Metal Sanaz on MusicPlus TV, helping the Truckee Brothers’ one-band campaign to save internet radio, and helping Airplay Direct with their second “All Things Digital” competition.
Having a desire to learn the back-end of the industry, Jim spent a year working in the Music Royalties Department at the The Walt Disney Company. Jim handled royalty accounting for high-profile A&R reps, Queen, Hilary Duff, Hannah Montana, The Cheetah Girls, and Atreyu. In his time with the company, Jim helped reduce the royalty accrual by $10 million and helped implement several key work-flow processes.
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