Ralph Simon is acknowledged as one of the founders of the modern mobile entertainment & content industry. Over the last 18 years, he has been a prominent global mobile trailblazer and innovator, helping grow the mobile entertainment, mobile health and mobile content industry while playing a central role in its impact and presence around the world. Simon heads the London-based Mobilium Global Group, which provides high-level strategic counsel and strategic guidance to brands, media companies, global thought leaders and professional organizations across the entire mobile spectrum including technology companies, movie studios / TV networks, global music / You Tube artists / TV personalities, ad agency groups, brands, platform providers and healthcare organizations around the world.
In May 2013, CTIA – The Wireless Association, based in Washington, DC, appointed Simon as its official Global Ambassador. The CTIA is North America’s principal wireless and mobile trade association, whose members include all the major telcos, device manufacturers and infrastructure industry players. Simon helps CTIA to expand its spheres of technology & policy influence in North and South America, and in emerging markets and developing countries internationally. Simon began his career co-founding the Zomba Group of music companies (including record label Jive Records) in the 1970s, building it into the world’s leading independent music and music publishing company. By the mid-90’s he was appointed Executive Vice President of Capitol Records and Blue Note Records in Hollywood, and built Capitol Records & EMI’s emerging new media business into a successful and significant global enterprise that established new business models for the record and music publishing industry.
In 1997 Simon created a start-up called Yourmobile and persuaded US and UK music publishers to embrace this new mobile medium by granting what would become the very first ring tone rights. Yourmobile became the first commercial ring tone company in the Americas, Europe, UK, Australia and Africa, and spurred a new and international mobile entertainment industry.
By 2003, Vivendi Universal purchased Yourmobile, renaming it Moviso, where Simon remained as an advisor. Today Simon is popularly known as the ‘Father of the Ring Tone.’ Between 2005 and 2009, Simon served as the mobile producer for three of the highest profile, live global broadcast events in recent history. Live 8, Bono & Sir Bob Geldof’s nine-city global concert, brought mobile connectivity to nine capital cities and an international television audience of over 800,000,000 viewers. This enormous people-powered call-to-action resulted in the G8 countries reducing the debt of the world’s poorest nations. He was also the Mobile Producer of Al Gore’s Live Earth, the world’s first eco-centric global impact event that spanned 10 countries and brought the vital message and visibility of global climate change to a worldwide audience of over 500,000,000 television viewers and online participants. In 2009 Simon was the Mobile Producer for the TED.com’s (www.ted.com) Prizewinning project, Pangea Day, a global multi-platform broadcast featuring short films from international flmmakers around the world.
By integrating a mobile/SMS layer to all these worldwide events, Simon helped set the standard for integrating mobile technology as an essential element in global television and major global event broadcasting. He has formidable knowledge about ways to deliver mobile content, “social broadcasting” and entertainment and grow the creative industries. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in the UK, a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences in the USA, and a welcome voice in the world of Synchronistory®.
