User:EllenZoe/sandbox/Joe Poletto

Joe Poletto created and manages Indie Global based in San Francisco, California. The company develops and makes investments in media and technology companies in the US and abroad.

Indie Global companies include Asterlight, Brandport (acquired by Live Gamer), Blue Rose Music, imvu, Kinoma (acquired by Marvell), ScanScout (acquired by Tremor Media), YuMe Networks (IPO August 2013), HWY 61 Networks, Indie Ads, IGN Project Flight, and SkyPop.

Blue Rose Music is a record label and music collective of artists. In addition, he created The Blue Rose Foundation, which is funded by a portion of all label revenue as well as benefit concerts. The Foundation provides pre-school scholarships to financially disadvantaged children.

For over 30 years, Poletto was an executive in media and technology for Microsoft, WebTV, HBO and Comedy Central.

Early career
Poletto grew up in Washington, Connecticut and began his professional career in advertising and business development for the Madison Square Garden Network and the A&E Network.

Poletto was Vice President of National Advertising Sales for HBO-Comedy Central and was instrumental in the launch of that network. In 1993, as Comedy Central's Vice President/Ad Sales, Poletto negotiated a deal with Pepsi to be the single sponsor of the network's The A-List show, hosted by Richard Lewis and Sandra Bernhard. Renamed Pepsi's A-List, the sponsorship of the program was the beverage company's first upfront deal with Comedy Central.

Poletto also served as Vice President of Microsoft TV and WebTV Networks (acquired by Microsoft in 1997) a Palo Alto, California-based subscriber company that made boxes allowing consumers to surf the internet through their televisions, where he was responsible for building and managing all non-subscription revenue streams, including advertising sales, electronic programming guides and interactive television services. In that capacity, Poletto developed partnerships with ABC, CBS, NBC, and Sony Columbia TriStar. At Microsoft's WebTV, Poletto made deals for direct purchase of items shown on various programs,[6] as well as deals for the live broadcasts of events.

In 2005, Poletto left Microsoft and created Indie Global.

Blue Rose Music and The Blue Rose Foundation
In 2015, Poletto founded Blue Rose Music, the Sonoma, California music company focusing on technology and the management and development of artists. A portion of all label revenue is allocated to The Blue Rose Foundation, which Poletto created to provide scholarships to children who are unable to afford quality education.

Artists signed to the label include Jackie Greene, The Mother Hips, Tim Bluhm, Laura Reed and Bailey Ingle.

In 2016, Poletto met guitarist Jackie Greene (Black Crowes, Lyle Lovett, B.B. King).

Singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips signed a solo deal with Blue Rose Music in 2017. Poletto made the offer to Bluhm after the musician had a near-death paragliding accident.

The fifth Blue Rose Ball took place 2018 at San Francisco's Fillmore Theater and featured The Mother Hips, Jackie Greene and Jason Crosby. The show raised $46,000 for The Blue Rose Foundation's scholarships.

Greene said of Poletto: "Joe definitely has a vision, and his vision is very grand. I don't always understand it, but I also don't second-guess him. It's the kind of thing that a label used to do in the '90s--which used to be called artist development."