Troy Carter is a 20-year entertainment industry veteran who launched the career of Lady Gaga, and has managed a roster of superstar artists that includes Music Biz 2015 Breakthrough Artist of the Year Meghan Trainor, John Legend, Charlie Puth, Lindsey Stirling, and many more. Carter now serves as Global Head of Creator Services at Spotify. After beginning his career in the 1990s at Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment, Carter joined Bad Boy Entertainment in 1995 before forming his own boutique talent management company, Erving Wonder, in 1999. After the company was acquired by the Sanctuary Group in 2004, he launched Atom Factory in 2010, which built some of the world’s largest social media audiences on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In 2011, he sought to focus the potential of those networks by co-founding Backplane, a Silicon Valley startup that unites people around affinities, interests, and movements. The following year, Carter incorporated A \ IDEA, a product development and branding agency, as well as AF Square, an angel fund and technology consultancy. Today, Carter feeds his passion for culture and technology through his Cross Culture Ventures, which counts more than 80 investments in early stage startups, including Spotify, Dropbox, Uber, Warby Parker, and Lyft. In 2015, Carter launched Smashd.co, a digital platform to inspire Millennials, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts by amplifying the art of hustle.