Indie music finance platform beatBread named Andreea Gleeson as its new CEO, the company announced Thursday (Sept. 10). She will succeed Tracy Maddux, who had served as interim CEO following the death of beatBread’s founding CEO Peter Sinclair in August 2025.
Gleeson comes from Believe-owned indie music distributor TuneCore, which she joined in 2015 and rose to CEO of in 2021. During her time there, Gleeson oversaw TuneCore’s expansion into several new global markets, the evolution of its publishing administration business to include artist development and the launch of its artist discovery platform TuneCore Accelerator.
Founded in 2020 to issue capital to independent artists, labels and songwriters who want to maintain ownership of their music, beatBread says it has issued around $100 million in advances through some 2,000 transactions with creators. Gleeson’s job now is to deploy some of the $124 million beatBread raised last year in credit and equity capital from Citi, Deciens Capital and others to scale the company’s AI-enhanced underwriting technology internationally.
“What drew me to beatBread is that Peter and this team solved a real problem for independent artists: how to access growth capital without giving up ownership or control,” said Gleeson in a statement. “They’ve built sophisticated technology and a funding model that consistently gives artists more choice. I’ve spent much of my career focused on what independent artists will need next, and access to better capital on artist-friendly terms is one of the most important opportunities ahead.”
Last October, beatBread launched a $100 million Global Independence Fund to support indie labels and distributors, partly in response to Universal Music Group’s acquisition of Downtown Music. In its release announcing Gleeson’s hire, the company says she will work to develop existing and new relationships with labels and distributors, and work with beatBread’s tech group to scale its proprietary chordCashAI technology, “which underpins the company’s ability to assess, price and structure funding across a broad range of creators and music businesses.”
Ishan Sachdev, general partner at beatBread’s longtime investor Deciens, said beatBread’s “technology and its ability to fund artists well … creates a significant opportunity to scale the business across a much larger global market. Andreea brings the operating experience and track record of building global businesses at the intersection of technology and music to capitalize on that opportunity.”
Maddux, who was CEO of TuneCore rival CD Baby from 2010-2020, will continue to support the company through the leadership transition. Both he and Gleeson have also been appointed to serve on the beatBread board of directors.
“Our priority over the course of the past year has been preserving the momentum that Peter [Sinclair] built, and positioning the company for long-term success,” said Maddux. “Andreea brings a rare combination of deep artist credibility, operational excellence and global scaling experience, and she is exactly the right leader to take beatBread to the next level in its growth journey.”
