Team & Board

Sean P. Fenlon, Founder & CEO

As written in the 2000 business plan:

Sean P. Fenlon is a lifelong hi-tech musician who has studied with the finest teachers at the finest institutions including The Peabody Institute of Music where he is completing his Doctorate. Mr. Fenlon plays the bassoon and piano and is well regarded as a composer of jazz influenced electronic and computer music. He has had experience with the Internet in the digital music arena from its inception. In the business world – as the Director of Business Operations of Investors Mortgage Corporation (Columbia, MD) – Mr. Fenlon upgraded the technology and procedural standards of the operation, which helped to increase the overall revenues from $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 per annum during his two-year tenure. Mr. Fenlon is the creative visionary and the driving force behind the ListenSmart.com model and function.

Note, 2026: Sean Fenlon earned his doctorate from the Peabody Institute in 2002. He finished his classes in the late 1990s and completed his dissertation after. At Investors Mortgage Corporation, where the plan calls him Director of Business Operations, he rose to Manager and Partner (Sean P. Fenlon, 2026). More at seanfenlon.com.

C. Ben Fenlon, Head of Operations

Ben Fenlon, Sean’s brother, was there from day one. Sean’s October 1999 investor report announced that Ben had joined the company, preparing the content that would make learning about downloadable music and finding your way around the site easy. He ran operations as Head of Operations.

On the bulletin boards he was one of the most visible people at the company. As ben_fenlon, an administrator registered February 11, 2000, he wrote 322 posts by the end of 2000 and was the day-to-day voice for artists: missing songs, uploads and conversions, logins and account help. He signed his posts “-Ben”. Thirty-five of those posts survive in the archive, from April to October 2000; for example “What’s up with our missing songs???”, “SONGS STILL MISSING” and “I can’t get into this site”.

Sources: Investor report, October 1999; ben_fenlon forum profile and archived threads, 2000; Sean P. Fenlon, 2026 (title).

Management and staff, 2000

In April 2000 the company had a staff of 10. Sean, on the boards: “Compare that to MP3.com with a staff of 264!” (April 15, 2000).

Along with the founding team, the 2000 management page and business plan list:

• Peter Lubin, VP of A&R. Senior Vice-President of A&R at Mercury, RCA and Elektra until 1997, where he signed or worked with artists including The Moody Blues, Peter Gabriel, Robert Cray, The Pixies, The Breeders, They Might Be Giants and Phish.

More on the founding team in 2000:

• Syed Zaidi, Head of Engineering. On the boards, as syed_zaidi (an administrator, registered February 1, 2000, 298 posts), he posted the daily “Bug Fixes For The Day” lists and answered artists’ technical questions. His 11 surviving posts run from the first day of the boards, March 2, 2000, to May 10, 2000.
• Hyun Lee, Lead Developer. Founder of Netronics Inc., a web application developer; electrical engineering degree from Georgia Tech.
• Dave Seidl, General Counsel & Advisor. Corporate attorney and equity partner at Miles & Stockbridge in Baltimore.

Early technical team, 1999:

• Sonny Suri, Consultant. The October 1999 investor report introduced him as the “lead” database expert: a former colleague of Brandon’s at PSINet and a senior database designer and administrator at PSINet and Oracle. He wrote the company’s database requirements, dated September 6, 1999.

Board of Directors

Paul Bandrowski, Jim Griffin and Ted Cohen agreed to join the ListenSmart.com Board. The Board met with Paul Bandrowski in person in Columbia, Maryland, for a day visit, and Jim Griffin and Ted Cohen by phone.

• Paul Bandrowski: co-founder and former CEO of Reciprocal (originally Rights Exchange), one of the pioneering companies in digital rights management; by 2000 its vice-chairman; earlier Chief Technology Officer of SOFTBANK Services Group. He also had his own ListenSmart.com member page (registered March 30, 2000), which lists Sean_Fenlon as a favorite member.
• Jim Griffin: In memoriam (died October 19, 2026) founder and CEO of Cherry Lane Digital and OneHouse; earlier Director of Technology at Geffen Records (1993–1998), where he digitized Aerosmith’s “Head First” (1994), the first full-length commercial entertainment product released online; founder of the “Pho” industry list. In May 2001 Webnoize named him conference chairman of Webnoize Events, the role Ted Cohen held for Webnoize ’98 and ’99 (Webnoize, May 16, 2001).
• Ted Cohen: VP of New Media for EMI Recorded Music; earlier a vice president at Warner Bros. Records and Philips Media, and chairman of the Webnoize ’98 and ’99 conferences.

Board roles as of 2000; founding-team titles as given by Sean P. Fenlon, 2026. Sources: ListenSmart.com business plan, 2000; management team page, 2000; company files, 1999; archived forum profiles, 2000; Sean P. Fenlon, 2026 (founding-team titles; launch press kit); Webnoize, 1998–2001, via the Wayback Machine (Webnoize conference chairs, Rights Exchange). The pages the company published are under company pages, 2000–2001.