“Monte is the best executive I’ve ever worked for, and Avery is one of the most analytical minds I’ve ever met,” says Roppo, photographed Dec. 13, 2017, at Republic Records in New York, of the Lipman brothers. “And Charlie [Walk]’s passion, creativity and fearlessness are inspiring, like anything’s possible.”
I T WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BANNER week in fall 2009 for then-Island Def Jam (IDJ) marketing executive Jim Roppo: Bon Jovi had just scored its fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with The Circle, and the debut EP from a promising young upstart, Justin Bieber, had just been released. Instead, on the night of Nov. 20, with his wife home pregnant, Roppo found himself in a Nassau County, N.Y., jail for failing to send a tweet from Bieber’s…
