Following the money is something that has served some of dance music’s biggest names very well. Now, Ears To The House doesn’t believe this is necessarily a bad thing – in most walks of life, you need to have a few people in there who are driven by the prospect of seeing big numbers in their bank accounts.
Mr Peter Michael Tong MBE is very much one of those people. He’s worked hard in life, and we don’t begrudge him his estimated £30million net worth – and his latest money spinner is Pete Tong’s DJ Academy. With the likes of Carl Cox, Jamie Jones, and Nicole Moudaber, it’s done quite nicely since its launch last year.
As their sale offering $200 off the regular $447 enrollment price comes to an end today, we decided to have a closer look at the business side of the academy itself. As ever, many of the answers we’re looking for can be found at Companies House – the government register of businesses operating in the UK.
Pete Tong DJ Academy Limited was incorporated on 19th April 2022 and has business premises listed at Eastgate House, just off Eastcastle Street in the London borough of Westminster. Two directors are involved in the company – Peter Michael Tong himself is obviously one, but who is the other?
Well, he’s a 44-year-old Italian businessman called Alessandro Tripi – pictured below, second to the left at the IMS Ibiza event earlier this year. He’s been in the dance music world for over a decade now – and his publicly available LinkedIn page reveals much more about his background, and gives an illuminating insight into his contacts in this industry.
For instance, it tells us that Pete Tong’s DJ Academy is not Tripi’s first rodeo in the world of music education. Since October 2015, he’s had involvement with the Mat Academy – a quick look at their website shows something which isn’t a million miles away from the Pete Tong branded effort.
Tripi has also worked with the Axtone Academy, set up by the very successful Swedish DJ and producer Axel Christofer Hedfors – better known to most as Axwell. Before this, Tripi spent a few years running Skills Group, which appears to be a creative agency.
Previous to this, Tripi worked for the Procter & Gamble corporation between 2003 and 2012 – and held quite the smorgasbord of jobs whilst there. They included two years as the Hugo Boss global brand manager, and even two years running the marketing department within beauty care.
Quite how he ended up switching from Procter & Gamble into music is unclear – all Ears To The House has been able to establish is that Tripi has been interested in dance music since the mid-90s. Nonetheless, he now has almost as many connections within the music industry as Pete Tong himself does.
Not a bad achievement for a man who started his career working in the pet food division of the American conglomerate…
