About Robin Bechtel
Robin Sloan Bechtel is a Grammy nominated new media and marketing pioneer in the music industry and is best known for “introducing the music industry to the internet”. Starting the entertainment industry’s “first” new media division at Capitol Records in 1990, Bechtel created many industry firsts, including launching the first website for a band, which garnered major media attention and won design awards. In 1997, she sold the internet’s first digital single for Duran Duran, which the Wall Street Journal called “history in the making”. Her internet strategy with Radiohead is credited as one of the main factors for the band’s number one selling album, and was viewed instrumental in shifting the industry’s fear of sharing music online. Bechtel is most recognized for being one of the first to discover and partner early on with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
As Head of New Media and New Business at Warner Bros. Records for eight years Bechtel signed and developed artists careers, created groundbreaking marketing campaigns, led the music industry’s adoption of iTunes as well as starting the mobile, merchandising and fan club divisions. She has also produced award-winning websites, designed band merchandise and created new products.
Bechtel has worked with the top artists in the industry, including Madonna, Radiohead, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Britney Spears, Tom Petty, Michael Buble, Coldplay, The White Stripes, The Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Paris Hilton and Josh Groban.
Her career has been written about in two New York Times Bestsellers: The Long Tail, by Wired editor Chris Anderson and Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Crash Of The Record Industry in the Digital Age. Bechtel was named one of the “Most Powerful Women in Entertainment” by The Hollywood Reporter and was nominated for a Grammy for creating a first-of-its-kind product package for The White Stripes.
“If I had followed all the rules, I’d have never gotten anywhere.” Marilyn Monroe
