Meet The Staff

Ryan Borba

Managing Editor

DREAM CONCERT: The Who, circa 1970

Ryan joins VenuesNow after starting at sister publication Pollstar as a copy editor while still in college at Fresno State in 2005, where he briefly hosted a music program at the university’s KFSR radio station.

Ryan grew up in rural central California with a steady diet of classic rock, attending concerts from a young age with his parents, die-hard Springsteen fanatics who would drive up and down California to see the Boss.

An avid guitar hobbyist and amateur coffee roaster, Ryan enjoys attending festivals, rooting for the Oakland Athletics and brainwashing his 8-year-old son Harrison, who loves Black Sabbath and Van Halen.

Ryan can be reached at [email protected]

DON MURET

SENIOR EDITOR

Dream Concert: “Frank Zappa with Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, Stones and the original Grateful Dead.”

Don Muret has been a reporter for 35 years, including 25 years in trade journalism at SportsBusiness Journal and the old Amusement Business magazine before joining VenuesNow in December 2017. Previously, he worked 10 years as a sports writer for multiple daily and weekly newspapers. The Cedar Rapids, Iowa native has a journalism degree from Drake University and attended graduate school at the University of Iowa. He’s a diehard Chicago Cubs fan and loves live music. Muret lives in Charlotte with his wife, Dana, and their two teenage daughters, Madeline and Carolyn.

Don can be reached at (704) 877-7399 or [email protected]

JAMES ZOLTAK

REPORTER/EDITOR

Dream Concert: “The 1973 Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, put on by Jim Koplik and Shelly Finkel, featuring The Band, Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead.”

Their mother refused to let them attend because they were 12, but picked them up after their first Dead show at the Palladium in New York, when they were 15, and the old Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City a year later. In journalism since getting kicked off the soccer team in high school more than 35 years ago, they were most previously on the police beat for LA-based regional wire City News Service.

They have also been a staffer at Amusement Business, Adweek, the now-defunct Santa Barbara News-Press and the Associated Press and a stringer for the Newark Star-Ledger, Reuters, UPI, the Los Angeles Times and Ventura County Star. They’re born-and-raised in New Jersey, where they earned a BA in journalism and theater arts at Rutgers University on the 10-year-I’ve-got an-actual-job-and-have-to-pay-for-this-myself plan. A long-suffering fan of Scarlet Knights athletics, they have been in Southern California since 1993, where they helped raise fraternal twins Miles and Olivia, who remain their pride and joy.

James can be reached at (805) 907-3328 or [email protected].

AKI KANEKO

SVP OF SALES, OVG MEDIA & CONFERENCES

Dream Concert: “Freddie Mercury, James Brown and Prince all on one stage singing “We Are The Champions.””

Veteran industry trade sales and sponsorships executive Aki Kaneko comes to OVG after nearly 20 years at Billboard, most recently as executive director of entertainment for the Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group. Aki is steering international advertising and sponsorship across all OVG media platforms and conferences, including Pollstar, Pollstar.com, Pollstar Daily Pulse, VenuesNow, VenuesNow.com, VenuesNow Pulse, and SportTechie. He is also steering sponsorships sales for the PollstarLive! Conference & Awards, which will mark its 30th anniversary in 2019, and the VenuesNow Conference, which ran June 19-20, 2018.

Aki can be reached at [email protected]

RICH DIGIACOMO

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE — US, CANADA, MEXICO AND INTERNATIONAL

Dream Concert: “The Killers, Train and and a bottle of 2006 Bond Cabernet Sauvignon at Greek Theatre in beautiful Griffith Park.”

Rich is continuing to push the global brand of VenuesNow forward. After creating successful regional spotlights for Colorado, California and much of the Midwest, Rich has been instrumental in facilitating VenuesNow’s growth overseas, signing the magazine’s first spotlight in Shanghai.

Rich can be reached at (310) 429-3678 or [email protected]

Brij Gosai

Director of Sales & Marketing International

Dream Concert: Nirvana supporting The Beatles

Brij represents the international division of VenuesNow/ OVG Media & Conferences. He is also looking after Pollstar international and looks forward to building the international brand for VenuesNow globally.

Brij can be reached at [email protected]