Jean Michel Gibert is a Music and Film specialist with over 25 years of experience in developing and promoting the music of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean, in the local, regional and international market. He holds a Diploma from Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), France.
Selected as Emerging Entrepreneur of the year in 1999 Jean Michel was the founder and director of the local label “Rituals Music”. He is now Managing Director of the Caribbean Music Group (http://www.caribbeanmusicgroup.com) which managed a large catalogue of Caribbean music with major international hits (Follow the Leader, Sweet Soca Music, Soul On Fire, Nookie).
In 2004, he opened Maturity Productions an audiovisual outlet, which produced the documentary “Calypso @ Dirty Jim’s”, ”Soca Power in Trinidad”, “Rose, the Lioness of the Jungle” which was broadcast on PBS. Maturity also produced Calypso rose albums signed to Harmonia Mundi (for Europe)(http://www.calypso-rose.com/). In 2008, he ventured into the digital world with the creation of trinidadtunes.com, the first legal download site to feature local music having the largest repertoire of music from Trinidad and Tobago.
He created major international events such as the Trini Party at the opening night of Midem 1996, and was a member of the steering committee for the Entertainment Industry for the Ministry of Trade in 2004 and represented Trinidad and Tobago at the first ACP /European Union convention in the Dominican Republic in 2006. He has been part of a consultation for a five-year plan for cultural industries for the EU funded Caribbean Export Organisation in Barbados in 2010.
In 2014, his latest award winning multimedia project “Pan! Our Music Odyssey” is a perfect example of how to promote our international instrument – the steelband – with a high quality product such as 80 minute docudrama, boxset etc… (www.pan.tt) in collaboration with various Ministries (Trade, Industry and Investment, Arts and Multiculturalism and Tourism), coproduced by WINDS (France) in collaboration with France Televisions.
Strong of the experience of been present at Midem and at WOMEX for the last twenty five years, he has bought hundreds of licensing and publishing deals to local and Caribbean artists with international major labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony RCA, Warner Music Group and independent such as Because, Harmonia Mundi, Ultra ,VP records.