Advisory Board Members

With two childhood friends Björn Barnekow first started his own company towards the end of high school. Initially a record store/mail-order it soon grew into a highly influential record label with numerous top 5 releases. Nowadays Bad Taste Records is an entertainment company with offices in Santa Monica and Lund, Sweden and in addition to the record label it also consists of Bad Taste Events (one of the biggest independent gig promoters in Scandinavia), Feeble Music (a licensing company/publisher that represents the majority of the Swedish indie labels/artists for film and TV licensing) and OBA Management. Among its artists the latter represents Danko Jones (one of the biggest rock bands in Canada) and the Platinum selling Swedish hip hop artist Timbuktu.

Hans Montelius is an award winning director and screenwriter. Montelius runs the production company Cinemantrix, with its studio based in Stockholm, Sweden. Cinemantrix also host workshops and seminars by some of Hollywood’s top industry executives for Nordic screenwriters, actors and directors, including arranges for Swedish actors and screenwriters to visit Los Angeles, facilitating a professional and high level introduction to the LA and international film business.
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Hans has recently written and directed an English language feature film set in Stockholm to be released 2018. Montelius previous short films has won 45 awards and screened at over 200 film festivals worldwide.

Felix Strand is the current CEO of Pixi Beauty, an international family-owned beauty brand that has global recognition and influence. He was born in Sweden but moved to London at a young age and later followed his family as they moved to Los Angeles to expand the family business. Felix graduated from Chapman University in 2012 with a degree in Business Administration, later continuing his executive education at Harvard Business School, he pursued a career as a business analyst before joining Pixi as e- commerce manager in 2014. With a clear vision for the company, he moved quickly up the ranks becoming President in 2017, and CEO in 2022. Through his leadership, Pixi has grown tremendously within the past few years and put their name on the map within the global beauty industry.

Helena Gytare works as an independent retail and merchandising consultant. Helena can also be found as one of SACC-LA’s go-to event photographers. In her spare time, she enjoys the beach, hiking, and spending time with her friends and family.