Waleed Diab

Waleed is Director and Global Head of Recorded Music Business Development for YouTube. In this role, he is responsible for negotiating YouTube’s music global licensing agreements with major record labels as well as Vevo and all independent and non-standard recorded music distributors.

In addition to deal-making, he is responsible for maintaining these partnerships and helping partners optimize their business on the world’s largest video platform. Waleed’s work over the past five years has enabled YouTube to launch the YouTube Music Premium subscription service in over 80 countries globally, adding a premium paid music option to YouTube’s existing ad-supported business. More recently, he oversaw label licensing efforts for YouTube’s recently launched TikTok competitor service, YouTube Shorts.

Before his current role, Waleed spent five years on the legal team at Google, where he was most recently Senior Counsel for music across Google products and services, including YouTube and Google Play Music. In that role, he handled a wide array of music legal matters, including negotiating, drafting, and advising on legal risk with respect to record labels, music publishers, music collection societies, and artist/talent issues. Also, he set legal policies and guidelines for a broad range of music and music-related initiatives.

Before joining Google in 2011, Waleed spent six years at Viacom, Inc. in the Business & Legal Affairs department. At Viacom, Waleed served as Senior Counsel for Music Strategy and Relations at MTV Networks, where he worked on music, television production, and general entertainment transactions relating to MTV Networks’ many powerful brands, including MTV, CMT, VH1, Comedy Central, Spike, and a variety of other Viacom properties.

Waleed is a 2004 graduate of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and 2001 graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park.