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When Russell Burke tells us that his days at Sony Music Entertainment included \u201chuge peaks\u201d such as the release of the hit sound track for the motion picture\xa0Titanic\xa0as well as huge challenges such as the rise of digital pirates, the two developments quickly converge.

Suddenly, in our mind\u2019s eye, we see Burke\u2019s career vessel of choice surrounded by pirates and the finance executive shouting a string of orders to a bewildered seafaring crew.

Once again, the instant imaging that our conversations often render appears to be strangely prescient of the finance leader\u2019s future career chapter.

\u201cBefore that piracy, I hadn\u2019t really understood the concept of disruption,\u201d explains Burke, who occupied VP of finance roles at Sony Music in both New York and Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s. \xa0

At first, Burke was tasked with helping Sony to lessen piracy\u2019s bite by leading a series of cost optimization initiatives, including setting up joint venture distribution agreements and putting in place shared services facilities.

\u201cAfter dealing with that for a time, I decided that I wanted to join the disruption,\u201d comments Burke, who in 2001 was named founding CFO of PressPlay, a music streaming service formed as a joint venture of Sony Music and Universal Music.

\u201cEven though this was a joint venture formed by two massive companies, it was in many respects a true start-up\u2014we sat down and created a business model and executed on it,\u201d explains Burke, who adds that the company would grow to serve 800,000 digital music subscribers before it was sold in 2003 to Roxio, an early streaming service that helped to legitimize the streaming seas as it rolled up streaming assets, including those of pioneering pirate Napster.

\u201cPressPlay was really set up by the record companies to battle the Napsters of the world, and, at the same time, these companies were suing the pirates,\u201d remarks Burke, who recalls that PressPlay opted to sell to Roxio as the firm sought to rebrand Napster as a legitimate streaming service\u2014signaling an end to the music industry\u2019s choppy seas.\xa0\u2013Jack Sweeney