Jean La Rose
CEO
Jean La Rose is a First Nations citizen from the Abenaki First Nation of Odanak in Québec. He grew up in Ottawa where he studied Journalism at Algonquin College and obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Social Communication at the University of Ottawa/Université St. Paul.
He was the Chief Executive Officer of APTN, the first national Indigenous broadcaster in the world, with programming by, for and about Indigenous Peoples from 2002 to 2019. He is now the President/CEO of Dadan Sivunivut, the parent company of Nagamo Publishing as well as other companies set up by APTN during his 17-year tenure at the network.
Oliver Johnson
Managing Director
Through composing and creative direction on over 100 commercials and 50+ TV series, as well as touring and producing Juno-winning and nominated acts, Oliver Johnson has become a creative and business leader in the Canadian music scene. Highlights include MusicTogether (co-founder), Soleil Sound (founder president), The Root Down Studio, (co-founder President), Bedtracks (co-founder President).
Bedtracks, one of Canada’s largest independently-owned production music libraries, is honoured to assist in the creation of Nagamo. Over the next four years, Bedtracks is committed to helping staff Nagamo with Indigenous personnel and steer the company toward a global vision that brings licensing and scoring opportunities to Indigenous music creators everywhere.
Nigel Irwin
Co-Creative Director/Composer
Nigel Irwin is a Cree composer and musical artist based in Tkaronto. As Co-Creative Director of Nagamo Publishing, Irwin has helped build the first production music-library created entirely by indigenous artists.
Through his musical alias Decree, Irwin became the 2019 recipient of the Bullseye Music Award through imagineNATIVE and Slaight Music. Since releasing songs in 2014, Decree’s music has appeared on CBC, SiriusXM, and Zoomer Radio, as well as several commercials and tv programs.