Neil Gillis

Neil Gillis has spent his entire executive career in music publishing and is the current (2025) Founder of a new music venture called CollectivRights Management. He is also the “N” in PEN Music Group, Inc and that team is a part of the new venture. In his prior shop, he was the President of Round Hill Music. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles, Nashville and London, Round Hill Music is a full-service music publisher and creative rights management company. Round Hill Music brought together a seasoned team of music publishing and investment professionals and owns or administers music recorded and performed by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Bon Jovi, the Eagles, Oris Redding, Elvis, Johnny Cash, George Harrison, bobby Darin, the Drifters,  Steve Perry, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Tina Turner, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Def Leppard, Carrie Underwood, Backstreet Boys, Bruno Mars, Aerosmith and Katy Perry, among many other artists. Songs in the company’s catalogs include “What a Wonderful World,” “I Feel Good,” “Happy Together,” All By Myself,” “All of Me,” “Living in America,” “Bye, Bye, Bye,” “Waking Up in Vegas,” “How Do You Stop,” “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” “I’m Alive”, “Inside Your Heaven”, “Summer of 69,” “Smooth,” “American Woman,” “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” “Please Come home for Christmas,” “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” “If It Does Not Snow on Christmas,” “Need you now,” “Grenade,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Jaded,” “Crawling Back to You,” and tens of thousands of other amazing songs.

Prior to his time with Round Hill Music, Neil was president, North America and global head creative for S1 songs America. He had held that role since July 1, 2007. Previously, Neil was the president and chief operating officer of Dimensional Music Publishing, LLC (DMP). In that role he managed all aspects of this uniquely diverse publishing company and helped to build upon the DreamWorks Music Publishing platform DMP purchased. Prior to that, he was the general manager (East Coast) for the Concord Music Group (CMG), where he helped establish a New York presence for CMG while also assisting in many aspects of its business operations, including bringing its product to Madison Avenue and certain film and television clients, helping solidify their strategic partnerships, and also assisting with the creative aspects of international licensing.

Earlier in his career, Neil spent 16 years with Warner/Chappell Music (WCM). During the last five years of that tenure he was senior vice president, creative music solutions for WCM. In that role, he brought the massive WCM catalog to Madison Avenue, brought the catalog to the video game community, worked on East Coast-based film and television projects, signed writers and catalogs, worked with developing artists and helped establish a creative business connection to many of the most important catalogs and writers within the WCM family.  During the first 11 years of his WCM tenure, he was vice president, copyright/licensing. In that role he was responsible for most of the day-to-day operating areas including mechanical licensing, contract administration, performance rights administration, cue sheet administration, international administration, sampling creative and licensing, copyright related business affairs functions, business liaison to royalties and synch, and development of the business side of IT tools enhancements.

Prior to WCM, Neil worked for Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) as head of international assets. In that role, he was responsible for managing all aspects of performance rights for BMI assets in international territories and for international assets in the BMI territory.

Cherry Lane Music is where Neil got his corporate start as an intern back in the early 1980s. He has been a successful teacher (UCLA extension for many years), and has served as an adjunct professor with a recent post at Nassau Community College; a lecturer (UCLA, USC, Baruch College, Berklee College of Music, University of the Pacific, New York University, Hofstra University, The Liverpool Institute); a writer (business column in the Performing Songwriter during the early ’90’s); a contributor to many industry books including Don Passman’s “ALL YOU NEED TO NOW ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS,” and most recently Bobby Borg’s The Musicians Handbook (Billboard Books); and as a performer (classically trained French horn player and jazz trained guitar player) and composer/songwriter (countless contributions to film, television advertising and cartoons).

Neil is a recently re-elected NMPA Board Member (prior board membership included a 13-year service period) and was an AIMP Board member for many years prior to that. He is currently a board member of the BMI Foundation, the Johnny Mercer Foundation, and member of BMI, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Musicians Union Local 802. He resides on Long Island with his beautiful wife, Donna, and has three amazing kids, Jonathan, Mari Catherine and Emma and a wonderful granddaughter Juliette.