James Diener

James Diener is an American music executive and entrepreneur.

Diener is co-founder of Freesolo Entertainment; an entertainment company comprising Freesolo Music, a record label joint venture with RCA Records/Sony Music Entertainment; Freesolo Publishing, a joint venture with SonyATV Publishing; and Freesolo Management, a joint venture with Vector Management/Live Nation Entertainment.

Diener is also co-founder of Alignment Artist Capital, a New York-based specialty finance company created specifically for the entertainment industry in partnership with BlackRock. Alignment Artist Capital provides access to capital needed for a range of business goals via a newly conceived structured investment model.

Most recently, Diener was founder and CEO/President of A&M/Octone Records, a joint venture between Octone Records and Universal Music Group. A&M/Octone Records signed and developed worldwide multi-platinum superstars Maroon 5, platinum modern rap-rockers Hollywood Undead, platinum modern-rock act Flyleaf, and internationally acclaimed hip-hop artist K'naan. A full-service artist development label, A&M/Octone operated music publishing, merchandising and touring rights companies – in addition to specializing in recorded music. After six successful years of operation, in September 2013, Octone initiated its buy/sell rights in the joint venture, resulting in Universal Music Group purchasing Octone Records' 50% interest in A&M/Octone Records.

Previously in 2000, Diener founded Octone Records, an independent label distributed through BMG, while simultaneously serving as Senior Vice President of A&R/Marketing for Clive Davis & the RCA Music Group, now a division of Sony Music Entertainment. As part of that relationship, Diener negotiated an exclusive joint venture with Sony Music that gave Octone the ability to upstream successful acts in partnership with the RCA Music Group for further international marketing and promotion. Also, while at RCA, Diener signed and developed platinum singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw.

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