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Overview
John Kulback is an industry-leading dealmaker and trusted advisor providing strategic counsel to clients across the ever-changing landscape of entertainment, media and technology.
This includes representing feature film financiers, television and documentary production companies and digital content creators in every facet of financing, development, production, marketing and distribution, along with guiding venture capital-backed media technology companies as they scale from early stage into complex and high-stakes corporate and commercial partnerships.
A seasoned business operator and executive, John has held a number of high-profile positions prior to joining Loeb & Loeb.
Most recently, John served as head of business operations and business affairs at Autograph, the blockchain startup founded by Tom Brady and backed by a16z, Kleiner Perkins, Haun Ventures and Lightspeed. At Autograph, in addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations, John closed over 40 ground-breaking partnerships with the likes of UMG/Republic Records, the PGA Tour, AEG, Lionsgate, the NBA and ESPN/Disney, as well as Abel Tesfaye Makkonen (also known as The Weeknd), Tiger Woods, Rafael Nadal and Simone Biles.
John was also head of business affairs at VICE Media, where he oversaw the business strategy and dealmaking for VICE Studios pursuant to TPG’s $450 million private equity investment into VICE Media. While at VICE, John closed the $14 million Sundance sale of The Report to Amazon, structured a $7.5 million fund with Verizon to support a documentary partnership between VICE and RYOT and negotiated the sale to Netflix of the Jim and Andy and Fyre Fest documentaries.
Earlier in his career, John was an entertainment lawyer at Twentieth Century Fox, where he was the lead lawyer on feature films developed and produced by James Cameron (including the Avatar sequels), Fox’s first distribution partnership with Google and Searchlight’s acquisition of the documentary He Named Me Malala about Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
This includes representing feature film financiers, television and documentary production companies and digital content creators in every facet of financing, development, production, marketing and distribution, along with guiding venture capital-backed media technology companies as they scale from early stage into complex and high-stakes corporate and commercial partnerships.
A seasoned business operator and executive, John has held a number of high-profile positions prior to joining Loeb & Loeb.
Most recently, John served as head of business operations and business affairs at Autograph, the blockchain startup founded by Tom Brady and backed by a16z, Kleiner Perkins, Haun Ventures and Lightspeed. At Autograph, in addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations, John closed over 40 ground-breaking partnerships with the likes of UMG/Republic Records, the PGA Tour, AEG, Lionsgate, the NBA and ESPN/Disney, as well as Abel Tesfaye Makkonen (also known as The Weeknd), Tiger Woods, Rafael Nadal and Simone Biles.
John was also head of business affairs at VICE Media, where he oversaw the business strategy and dealmaking for VICE Studios pursuant to TPG’s $450 million private equity investment into VICE Media. While at VICE, John closed the $14 million Sundance sale of The Report to Amazon, structured a $7.5 million fund with Verizon to support a documentary partnership between VICE and RYOT and negotiated the sale to Netflix of the Jim and Andy and Fyre Fest documentaries.
Earlier in his career, John was an entertainment lawyer at Twentieth Century Fox, where he was the lead lawyer on feature films developed and produced by James Cameron (including the Avatar sequels), Fox’s first distribution partnership with Google and Searchlight’s acquisition of the documentary He Named Me Malala about Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
Education
- Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, cum laude, Wigmore Scholar
- Cleveland Institute of Music, B.M.
- Case Western Reserve University, B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
Bar Admissions
- California
- New York
Recognition
- “Up Next” list of Emerging Leaders in Entertainment Law in Variety’s “Legal Impact Report,” which profiles the leading attorneys working across all segments of the entertainment business
Affiliations
- Adjunct Professor, Course Titled “Emerging Entertainment,” Northwestern University School of Law
- Member, Board of Directors, Orchestra of the Americas