Stakeholder Group: Private Sector
Region: Western European and Others Group - WEOG
Biography
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.