ROLI Names Stein Head of Sales Americas, Launches Equator Synth

ROLI, design-led music technology leader and developer of the award-winning Seaboard GRAND, today announced that Gregg Stein will join the ROLI team as head of Sales, Americas. This follows a breakthrough 2014 which has seen units shipping around the world to customers, and leading artists such as Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman performing on the Seaboard to global audiences. ROLI recently secured $16.5m in from leading venture capital firms in 2014, and acquired JUCE, an acclaimed C++ framework used by leading audio companies such as Korg, Pioneer and Akai Professional.

Stein brings a wealth of experience from within the music technology industry, having most recently led the omni-channel distribution expansion as CEO, Americas at Libratone Inc. He has also previously held global senior leadership roles at Numark Industries (now called inMusic Brands), the Loop Loft, ION Audio, the MUSIC Group, Line 6 and the Avedis Zildjian Company. Gregg holds degrees from Berklee College of Music and Harvard University. When not on the road or with his family, He continues to perform as a professional drummer.

 He will work closely with Sarah Yule, ROLI’s head of Sales EMEA and Rest of World, who herself recently joined ROLI from inMusic Brands where she was International Sales Manager, handling their entire professional brand portfolio, including Akai Professional, Alesis, Alto Professional, Denon DJ, Numark and M Audio. Gregg said “I’m thrilled to be bringing genuine disruptive innovation to the world of musical instruments and beyond – the Seaboard is an unprecedented product, and I’m truly excited to be able to help get it into people’s hands.” 

ROLI founder and CEO, Roland Lamb, said “I am delighted to welcome Gregg and Sarah to the ROLI team. They each bring exceptional leadership and in-depth industry knowledge as we scale up our ability to get Seaboards to customers and deliver on an exciting product roadmap in 2015 and beyond. With a world-class sales team in place, ROLI is now poised to expand globally, building partnerships across all key direct and export markets.”

ROLI also announced the launch of an alpha version of Equator, the world’s first synthesis engine dedicated to multi-dimensional instruments. Equator alpha will be available to all existing and new Seaboard GRAND customers free-of-charge. Speaking from the NAMM Show where the Seaboard GRAND is on display, Roland continued “Equator is a game-changer, because it has been designed from the ground up to enable multiple parameters to be modulated in an intuitive and synchronous way. This release is just the beginning of a journey that will redefine the possibilities of real time expressive control of synthesis.”