Brandeis Alumni, Family and Friends

Finding Harmony in an Evolving Industry

Brad LeBeau ’79 is the founder and CEO of PRO MOTION, the oldest and largest remix curation and dance music marketing company in the world.

When Brad LeBeau ’79 arrived at Brandeis as a first-year student, the plan — in keeping with his mother’s wishes for her only child — was to study pre-med. 

Following her death early in his sophomore year, LeBeau received a bit of life-changing advice. “If you truly love what you do for a living, that's the blessing,” his father told him, offering a perspective that has stayed with LeBeau across the decades. 

Fast-forward and the founder and CEO of the oldest and largest independent remix curation and dance music marketing company in the world, is more passionate than ever about his chosen path. Launched in 1983, PRO MOTION. The Brad LeBeau Company, Inc., is based in New York City.

“I loved biology, but [becoming a doctor] just wasn’t my thing,” says LeBeau, who grew up watching Soul Train and listening to R&B while his contemporaries devoured rock ‘n’ roll and American Bandstand. A weekend regular at Boston’s disco clubs, LeBeau quickly learned that spinning records was a great way to earn extra spending money.

“I never thought music would become a career,” says LeBeau, whose agency recently marked its 41st anniversary. The psychology major made the leap from deejaying dance parties on campus to promoting records via gigs at prominent New York City nightclubs. Various jobs with independent labels and industry connections with the likes of Tommy Mottola (former CEO of Sony Music Entertainment) are how he learned the ropes. A call from the president of MCA Records, after the first record he promoted hit #1 on the Billboard charts, was a turning point for LeBeau.

LeBeau’s company has been instrumental in jumpstarting careers, propelling pop-culture status, and creating the ground swell for thousands of recording artists—both up-and-coming and established.

“Music will forever be consumed, but how we consume it is constantly evolving,” says LeBeau of an industry that began with vinyl and is now largely digital. In addition to specializing in national club promotion, specialty radio airplay, and social media marketing, PRO MOTION works with the world’s biggest producers to turn dance-floor hits into radio-friendly singles. 

His catalog of artists includes such legendary musicians as Diana Ross, Janet Jackson, Cher, and Whitney Houston to contemporary talent Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Shakira, Taylor Swift — and the formula for finding them was simple.

“If I like the music, I’ll represent it; and if I don’t, I have to pass on it,” says LeBeau who remains passionate about his work.

LeBeau points to his time at Brandeis as the key to finding himself. “I came into my own and developed a sense of confidence at Brandeis that  I never had growing up in Manhattan,” says LeBeau, who graduated a semester early. “The experience of being away from home — and learning that I could go it alone — was of paramount importance to my path.”  

These days, LeBeau’s advice for current students and recent grads is the same his father proffered during that long-ago chat from the payphone inside the Usdan Student Center. 

“In our society, men and women have to work more during their waking hours than anything else; if you love what you do for a living, you are truly blessed.”