As President of Music and Publishing at NBCUniversal, Mike Knobloch oversees all aspects of the studio’s music and soundtracks, and manages one of the largest music publishing catalogs, with film and television songs and scores spanning nearly a century of Universal’s history.
An Emmy-winning, two-time GRAMMY-nominated Music Supervisor and Producer, his career highlights include five of the top twenty highest-grossing films of all time globally, among them Jurassic World, Titanic, and Avatar. In just the last decade, songs, and soundtracks he has supervised have been streamed more than 43 billion times.
At Universal, Knobloch has overseen music for the studio’s most successful franchises, including Fast & Furious, Pitch Perfect, Despicable Me, Fifty Shades of Grey, and The Super Mario Bros, as well as the highest-grossing biopic of all time, Oppenheimer (Oscar, GRAMMY, BAFTA and Golden Globe for best score), and The Odyssey (Universal’s highest grossing film ever). Other credits include Wicked, Illumination’s Sing franchise, Twisters, Les Misérables, Straight Outta Compton, Tár, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and DreamWorks Animation’s Wild Robot and Trolls. Highlights also include the RIAA-certified Diamond singles “See You Again,” “Happy” and “Earned It,” plus the multi-platinum “Love Me Like You Do” and “Cups.”
As a committed advocate for representation in music for visual media, Knobloch and Universal’s Global Talent Development and Inclusion group launched the company’s Composer Initiative in 2018 – a first-of-its-kind program that identifies, develops and champions talent from underrepresented groups, and gave rise to the first woman to score a feature film for DreamWorks Animation.
Before joining Universal in 2010, Knobloch was Executive Vice President of Film Music at 20th Century Fox, where his credits since 1996 included The Devil Wears Prada, Moulin Rouge, Walk the Line, The Day After Tomorrow, The Simpsons Movie, and the X-Men, Ice Age, and Alvin & the Chipmunks franchises.
He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Country Music Association, while also on the national boards of The Recording Academy / GRAMMYs and MusiCares. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University, where he has served nearly two decades on the Dean’s Advisory Committee at the School of Communication and now advises its Sound Arts and Industries program and Education Through Music LA.