iHeartMedia’s Bob Pittman, Rich Bressler, John Sykes and Tom Poleman will be presented with the prestigious Music Visionary of the Year award by UJA-Federation of New York. The four executives will be honored at the foundation’s annual gala luncheon on June 11 in New York.
iHeartMedia operates the largest radio network in the U.S. Pittman (pictured above) is its chairman and CEO and was a cofounder of MTV; he has also been CEO of MTV Networks, AOL Networks, Six Flags Theme Parks, Quantum Media, Century 21 Real Estate, and Time Warner Enterprises. Bressler is president, COO and CFO of of iHeartMedia and iHeartCommunications and was previously managing director at the Boston-based private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners. Sykes is president of iHeart’s entertainment enterprises and was also a cofounder of MTV, president of VH1, CEO of Infinity Broadcasting (now CBS Radio) and president of Chrysalis Records. iHeart veteran Poleman is the company’s chief programming officer and previously oversaw Z100/New York and led programming at Top 40 radio stations in New Haven, Connecticut and Houston.
Last year Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and global head of creator services Troy Carter were honored at the UJA luncheon (although the former did not attend and the latter, who did, left the streaming giant six weeks later). Past recipients of the award include Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer, Universal Music Group executive vp Michele Anthony, and Republic Records founders Monte and Avery Lipman, among others.
The annual event is known to draw top talent. Previous attendees and performers include Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard, Adele, Patti Labelle, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Alessia Cara and basketball great Julius “Dr. J” Erving.