Entrepreneur and music industry trailblazer kicks off fifth podcast season
Mark Montgomery
Nashville Study Away Program
Music, Theater, and Dance Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Education
B.A., Communications, Marketing and Advertising, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Courses Taught
MUSR 3368 Entrepreneurship and Careers in the Music Industry
About Mark
A creative catalyst, Mark Montgomery has spent a lifetime driving transformation and innovation as a founder, investor, strategic advisor, and nationally recognized thought leader and speaker. Working across a wide array of verticals—Entertainment, Finance, Venture, Healthcare, Spirits, Cannabis, CPG, Politics, Economic Development, and Startup Acceleration—he has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder value and economic impact.
Montgomery is a digital pioneer. He co-founded one of the first companies to sell music direct to consumers on the web in the mid-’90s—around the time of Amazon’s public launch. In 1999, he co-founded and led one of the pioneers in the direct-to-fan (D2F) space, echomusic, which was sold in 2007 to IAC/Ticketmaster for $25MM, returning over 10x to investors in less than two years.
In 2011, Montgomery founded FLO, a hybrid think tank and venture accelerator that launched nine companies in 12 months (one returning a 44% IRR to investors), including Blue Chair Bay Rum for superstar artist Kenny Chesney—the fastest-growing new brand in the history of the spirits industry. The FLO team, led by Montgomery, created and implemented the initial recruitment strategy that brought Google to the Tennessee market (via its Google Fiber investment in 2016) and helped launch the “Google for Entrepreneurs” and “Google for Creators” brands in partnership with Google. Since 2016, Google has invested over $15B in the Tennessee market.
In 2018, Montgomery worked directly for the CEO of First Horizon Corporation, an $85 billion super-regional bank, helping challenge legacy thinking and accelerate enterprise-wide transformation. He partnered closely with the CEO to pressure-test internal assumptions, question established norms, and identify new strategic opportunities across the C-suite—including shaping a strategy that positioned FHC as an early limited partner in the fintech-focused Canapi Fund, which has since grown to over $1B in assets under management. His work contributed to advancing the bank’s digital transformation efforts and reshaping its executive narrative, earning him First Horizon’s “Arena Award,” a distinction rarely granted to someone outside the organization.
See MoreA key player in the creation of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, he served as co-chair of the committee that operationalized the NEC and wrote the first check, kicking off the public-private fundraising effort. To date, the NEC has supported more than 14,000 entrepreneurs and helped drive $100MM+ in exits and $300MM+ in capital raised.
Montgomery has served on the boards of more than two dozen for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (founding board), W.O. Smith School of Music, the Academy of Country Music Awards, the Americana Music Association (Board Chair), Artist Growth, StudioNow, Topspin (a D2F leader sold to Apple), Hands On Nashville, and the Music City Music Council, among others.
Over the course of his career, he has led initiatives for global brands, institutions, and cultural icons including Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Sony (NYSE: SONY), Warner Music Group (NASDAQ: WMG), Universal (OTCMKTS: UMGNF), Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV), IAC, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Disney (NYSE: DIS), Nissan (OTCMKTS: NSANY), Under Armour (NYSE: UAA), Target (NYSE: TGT), First Horizon (NYSE: FHN), the NBA, the NFL, WME, CAA, and Ingram Industries. His work has extended to artists and leaders such as Kenny Chesney, Dolly Parton, Beyoncé, Jon Bon Jovi, Keith Urban, Alison Krauss, Dierks Bentley, KISS, Rascal Flatts, Ice Cube, Guy Clark, Kanye West, Britney Spears, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
He loves to teach but finds education glacially slow. He founded an education continuum called “A Minor in Reality.” Originally developed at Middle Tennessee State University, the project was recently brought back to life through a partnership with the University of New Haven. He wanted to build a platform he wished he had in college—a no-BS continuum focused on the foundational pieces of the entrepreneurial journey: mindset, grit, brand, finance, product-market fit, and a good old-fashioned dose of “what in the heck is happening right now?”—coupled with inspiration from founders and operators across a range of verticals, compressed into a 16-week program.
In the second half of his life, Montgomery has adopted a family-first mentality. His greatest startup is his family. He lives in Pegram, Tennessee, with his wife, daughter, a host of dogs, and a few other critters for good measure. More at
Awards
- Nashville Post Entrepreneur of the Year - 2012
- Nashville Chamber of Commerce Future 50 in Tennessee - 2007
- Nashville Business Journal Best in Business - 2007
- Nashville Business Journal Entrepreneur of the Year - 2006
- Nashville Business Journal Best in Business - 2006
In the Media
Mark Montgomery shares his entrepreneurial journey, from his first lawn care business as a teenager to building and selling companies in the music and technology industries.
This is the story of Mark Montgomery a musician who came to Nashville with $800 and failed to make it big as a musician. Then he found the Internet...