Nick Ashton-Hart
Nick Ashton-Hart
Geneva Representative
As CCIA's Geneva Representative, Nick
is responsible for representing the interests of CCIA and its members in
world trade, intellectual property, and Internet governance policy to the
UN and its agencies and the world’s government negotiators based in what
is the world’s multilateral policy capital. Previously he was Director
for At-Large and Senior Director for Participation and Engagement with
the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Inc. (ICANN).
He is also the founding coordinator of a broad coalition
of civil society NGOs, intellectual property rightsholders, libraries,
consumer organisations and industrial stakeholders known as Copyright
for Creativity (C4C) and was a key part of the
founding Secretariat and organising committee of the International
Music Registry project at the World Intellectual
Property Organisation (WIPO).
Ashton-Hart’s business career began in the music
industry managing performers such as James Brown and Heaven 17, which involved
the practical application of intellectual property law and the management
of people of diverse skill sets and backgrounds, projects with multi-million-dollar
budgets and revenues, and complex negotiations of long-term recording,
publishing, sponsorship, and other contractual arrangements for globally
successful artists.
He has more than 15 years of experience in international
strategic policy development and intergovernmental negotiations, successfully
assisting civil society and private sector non-governmental organisations
(NGOs), Fortune 50 multinational corporations, and international NGOs representing
industry and Intellectual Property rightsholders create and develop partnerships
with UN member-state Governments to achieve their objectives in multilateral
processes at the United Nations and its agencies and the European Union’s
Parliament and Commission.
He has served as a Director and Managing Director of companies
in various market sectors during his professional career, including as
the Executive Director of the International Music Managers Forum (IMMF),
the international non-governmental organisation representing the interests
of music managers and their clients, the featured artist community, worldwide.
In the private sector he has led a successful IT consultancy,
providing consulting services for companies in transition, or during reorganisations
or periods of rapid growth. His work there ranged from advising companies
on how to achieve greater ROI on their IT systems to designing and redesigning
enterprise-wide IP based networks. He has been engaged at various times
as a temporary IT Director or CTO/CIO.
