An Isenberg Grad Embraces Entrepreneurship and Disruption

Three decades ago, Isenberg accounting graduate Larry Mestel ’84 took a quantum business leap.  It was 1989, and Mestel was Arthur Young’s (a Big Six accounting firm) point man for its client, Polygram Records, during its acquisition of Island Records. Toward the end of negotiations, Mestel received a phone call from Island’s top business officer, Mel Kline.

 In the conversation, Kline, who was business alter ego to Island’s founder and owner, Chris Blackwell, announced:  Larry, I can’t work with Polygram and I’d like you to replace me at Island. Several months later, after meeting with Blackwell, Larry fielded a follow-up call from Kline, who informed him: Larry, you’re starting on Monday.

Larry’s response: “I can’t do that. I have to give these guys [Arthur Young] two weeks’ notice.

What for? asked Kline. You’re going into the record business!

Across a Great Divide

In crossing that business/cultural divide, Mestel traded the security of an established public accounting firm for one of the planet’s fastest paced, most disruptive industries. Through Blackwell, he also caught the entrepreneurial bug.  “Chris was the epitome of a creative entrepreneur,” notes Mestel. “Those assets rub off on you.”

Blackwell is best known for introducing Americans to reggae music through his own label, Island Records. Blackwell discovered Bob Marley and Toots and the Maytals. Later on, he launched Steve Winwood, U2, Melissa Etheridge, and the Cranberries. With Mestel as his financial and strategic sounding board, Blackwell diversified his enterprises. Island Pictures released Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. Blackwell invested in hotels, resorts, real estate, Japanese animation cinemas, and even a chain of fast food franchise called Fat Burgers.

Today, Larry is CEO of his own start-up, Primary Wave. Launched in 2006 to acquire music publishing assets, the company, under Larry’s impetus, has expanded its industry footprint to embrace talent management, music publishing, brand and digital marketing, and intellectual property creation. To that end, it represents and creates artistic and media opportunities for Ceelo Green, Melissa Etheridge, Cypress Hill, Natalie Imbruglia, and many other artists.

As an industry veteran, Larry has navigated one wave of disruption after another. “The record business is horrible, but the music business is wonderful if you do it the right way,” he emphasizes. “For all practical purposes, streaming will kill off the physical business [i.e. cds] in five to seven years. For many artists, live performance has become their livelihood. But they have much, much more to leverage.”

That, he emphasizes, is the raison d’etre for Primary Wave.  “We empower our artists with every conceivable service—publishing, branding, advertising, film, and TV appearances—you name it,” Larry remarks. “Just about all of our rock stars want to act,” he adds. “We make that happen too.”

Entrepreneurial Innovations

“Isenberg and EY schooled me in business basics; that helped me as a business generalist,” notes Mestel. “But they didn’t prepare me for the onslaught of artists’ personalities and the entrepreneurial creativity that have sparked Island and my own company.”

At Primary Wave, creativity and employee empowerment go hand in hand.  Employees, including Mestel, work in open spaces with few physical dividers. All of the firm’s 75 employees are designated partners; half of them equity partners who share in the company’s profits. That mutual empowerment, Larry remarks, stimulates creative juices, which ultimately “allows us to give our artists the opportunities and synergies that help propel their own creativity.” It all, he says, furthers Primary Wave’s core mission: “Everything we do,” insists Larry, “is geared toward the creation of new intellectual property and profitability for Primary Wave and, above all, our artists.”