Michael Lynton is the Chairman of Santa Monica, CA-headquartered Snap Inc.
Prior to chairing Snap, he served as the CEO of Sony Entertainment.
Lynton reportedly became Snap’s Chairman after his wife emailed her praise of the company to their customer support team.
In February 2019, Michael Lynton became a Director on the board of Warner Music Group.
Michael Lynton: Career history
Michael Lynton got his career started as a manager of business development for Disney Consumer Products in 1987. He moved into Disney’s publishing division in 1989.
By 1994, he assumed the presiding role over Hollywood Studios, staying in that role until 1996.
In 1996, Lynton was announced as CEO and Chairman of Pearson’s Penguin Group. Lynton focused on modernizing Penguin Group’s portfolio by increasing its presence on the internet and launching the company’s foray into music. During his tenure with the company, Lynton oversaw the acquisition of Putnam Inc., the publishing arm of MCA Inc. and the entertainment arm of Seagram Co. This move added writers including Tom Clancy and Dick Francis to Penguin Group’s talent roster.
In 2000, Lynton moved to Time Warner to serve as CEO of AOL Europe, president of AOL International, and president of Time Warner International. He remained with Time Warner until 2004.
In 2004, Lynton moved to Sony Pictures Entertainment to become Chairman and CEO. This job entailed Lynton’s close management of Sony’s film, television, and digital content studios as well as Sony’s distribution. He was also responsible for Sony’s home entertainment distribution, studio use and maintenance, and new technological advances the company was working on.
In April 2012, Lynton was promoted to CEO of Sony Entertainment while keeping his job at Sony Pictures.
In his new capacity, Lynton oversaw all of Sony’s entertainment properties, including music, music publishing, in addition to all of his past responsibilities. Lynton was famously in charge of Sony’s entertainment division when North Korean hackers stole a cataclysmic amount of data from the company in response to the release of The Interview.
He stepped down from both his roles at Sony Pictures and his roles at Sony Entertainment in early 2017.
After departing Sony, Lynton dabbled in book publishing deals, including one where a group of investors purchased Arcadia Publishing.
Notably, though, Lynton assumed the role of Chairman at Snap Inc. in 2017, a company he was already serving on the board of.
Snap Inc. makes the popular app Snapchat, which allows users to send photos to each other as an alternative to texting.Music Business Worldwide