Margo Drakos ’08GSAS
Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of InstantEncore.com
Young Global Leader Honoree 2010

Margo Drakos (’08GSAS) has been honored by the Forum of Young Global Leaders, a community of extraordinary achievers under the age of 40, led by the World Economic Forum and headed by Queen Rania of Jordan. Each year the Forum recognizes and acknowledges up to 200 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. The honor is a five-year appointment.

“The World Economic Forum is a true multistakeholder community of global decision-makers in which the Young Global Leaders represent the voice for the future and the hopes of the next generation. The diversity of the YGL community and its commitment to shaping a better future through action-oriented initiatives of public interest is even more important at a time when the world is in need of new energy to solve intractable challenges,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.

The Young Global Leaders 2010 reflect regional and stakeholder diversity. The ones from the United States include Evan Williams, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Twitter; Kevin M. Warsh, Board Member, Federal Reserve System; Marissa Mayer, Vice-President, Search Product and User Experience, Google Inc.; and Margo Drakos, Chief Operating Officer, InstantEncore.com, among others.

Ms. Drakos is Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of InstantEncore.com, a digital community for fans, artists, and arts organizations, designed to extend and enhance the live classical music experience. InstantEncore provides a classical music search engine, application internet crawler, and digital asset management system, to power websites, widgets, mobile applications, and social networks. Ms. Drakos focus is on InstantEncore's business strategy and development is currently working with over 1500 partner organizations ranging from American Public Media to Aspen Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. She is a frequent guest-speaker at conferences and universities on “Designing a Digital Media Strategy – Arts Organizations in the 21st Century”.

Prior to working in business and technology, Ms. Drakos performed as a solo cellist and chamber musician throughout Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States. Ms. Drakos served as the cellist of the American String Quartet (2002-07) and has held posts as the Associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Principal Cellist of the San Diego and Oregon Symphonies, and Guest Principal of Seattle Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Artist-in-Residence and faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival (2003-07), Ms. Drakos has given cello and chamber music master classes at universities and conservatories across the United States, Europe and China. She has toured the U.S. with “Musicians from Marlboro” and gave the world premiere of David Ludwig's Cello Concerto with the Vermont Symphony, Jaime Laredo conducting for the orchestra’s 70th Anniversary. She has performed and given interviews across the United States and Europe, including National Public Radio, St. Paul Sunday, Performance Today, and the European Broadcasting Union. Ms. Drakos has recorded for Arabesque Records, Sony Classical, and produced for the Miro String Quartet.

Ms. Drakos first captured national attention at age five as a singer on numerous national radio and television commercials ranging from McDonald's to Wonderbread. At fifteen Ms. Drakos entered the Cleveland Institute of Music as a double major in cello and composition. She received her Bachelor of Music from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she studied with David Soyer.

Ms. Drakos studied Human Rights at Columbia University, with a concentration in the roll of extractive industries in the developing world and was one of Professor Radon's students. Ms. Drakos is the author of The Corporate Human Rights Impact Assessment: Top Down and Bottom Up, which appears in The International Affairs Review, Spring 2009. Ms. Drakos is co-author with SIPA Professor Jenik Radon and Tarek Maassarani (’06SIPA) including Getting Human Rights Right, a Feature Article in the 2008 The Stanford Social Innovation Review. Ms. Drakos, Professor Radon and Mr. Maassarani are also referenced in The United Kingdom Parliament’s House of Lords and House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights Report, 2009. Mr. Maassarani and Ms. Drakos co-authored Extracting Corporate Responsibility, towards a Human Rights Impact Assessment, which appears in The Cornell International Law Journal, Spring 2007. She has presented her academic work at the Yale Law School’s Young Scholars Conference and the International Business and Human Rights Conference in the Netherlands.

Margo resides in Los Angeles with her husband, a resident physician at Harbor-UCLA Hospital. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a South Central Scholar Mentor.