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Bill Wilson, 36
SVP
AOL Programming
Bill Wilson is a creature of habit. He lives in Tenafly, N.J., just a town away from his native Teaneck. He’s known his wife since kindergarten and made his first overtures to her in the sixth grade. He knew from the age of 7 that he wanted to work in the music industry and he hasn’t veered from his course.
However, he couldn’t have predicted then that working in music would have led him to a job at one of the world’s biggest Internet companies.
“What we’re doing now is the new music industry,” he says.
Mr. Wilson started his career on a more traditional recording business path, spending a decade at BMG Entertainment marketing pop stars such as OutKast and the Dave Matthews Band.
As Internet downloading began to take off three years ago, he made the prescient decision to move to America Online, where he was tasked with finding original music content for the site. He sank his teeth into the job, creating programming that gave AOL Music the most sophisticated content in the business. He put artist recording sessions online, signed contracts with labels to premiere their artists’ videos and streamed original AOL concerts to broadband users. “Bill knows how to cater to the consumer,” says his boss, Jim Bankoff, executive vice president of AOL Programming.
Pleased with his success, AOL soon put Mr. Wilson in charge of all of the portal’s entertainment offerings, including the popular Moviefone. At the beginning of this year, Mr. Wilson received another promotion, to oversee all AOL content, including news, finance and sports.