Before the labs. Before the boardrooms.
Before the biochemistry labs, before the boardrooms, before the campaigns that moved medicine into the hands of patients — there was a young musician who, after four years of touring through Western Canada, understood something fundamental about performance: that talent alone doesn't build an audience. Story does. Context does. The right person in the right room at the right moment does.
In the early 1990s, Robert Levak and his brother Victor founded Hush Sound Recording Studio in Vancouver. They secured multiple FACTOR grants supporting independent Canadian musicians, built a working production infrastructure from nothing, and learned firsthand what it takes to bring original music into the world.
Then life redirected him. A fascination with genetics and molecular biology, a biochemistry degree from UBC, a clinical cytogenetics research stint at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University pulled him toward a different stage entirely — the high-stakes world of oncology drug pipeline market development and launches.
For over two decades, he thrived there.
Three world-class organizations.
One through-line.
Building brands that move people to act.
Genentech
Where the craft was learnedCommercial team leadership and senior product management across multiple novel oncology launch teams. The core discipline was positioning: identifying what makes a new product irreplaceable to a specific audience, then building every message, channel, and proof point around that single truth.
The rigor was absolute. Claims required evidence. Positioning required differentiation that could withstand clinical and competitive scrutiny. Every launch was an exercise in finding the irreducible core of a product and making that the center of everything.
Seattle Genetics (Seagen)
A decade of progressively higher-stakes leadershipSales management, brand market launches, new product planning, and pipeline commercial strategy across multiple oncology assets over a decade of progressively higher-stakes leadership. Operating in crowded, competitive markets required mastering competitive differentiation: not just knowing who your audience is — but knowing who else is competing for them, and why your product deserves to win.
Commercial leadership on major acquisitions and multi-billion dollar licensing transactions demanded precise audience mapping, market sizing, and narrative construction under significant external pressure.
Zymeworks
Building commercial infrastructure from a blank pageHead of Global Marketing with a mandate to build where nothing existed — hiring the agency of record, developing a tradename and brand identity for a lead oncology asset, assembling a cross-functional launch team, and preparing a pre-commercial program for its first major market entry.
Label architecture from scratch. Every decision — brand name, visual identity, congress strategy, pipeline narrative — had to be made without precedent or existing infrastructure.
Back Where It Belongs.
After relocating back to Canada, Robert returned to the question he'd shelved decades ago: What would it look like to bring commercial strategy to the music he loves?
The answer is Lions Den Music Production — a strategic marketing and artist management company built on the same disciplines and frameworks learned at Kellogg and practiced over decades, now applied to the artists and recordings that deserve to be heard.
His sole current artist is Gergana Velinova — Bulgarian-Canadian jazz vocalist, poet, and composer. Her seventh album, Free (Cellar Music Group, June 12, 2026), is the first full-scale Lions Den campaign.
Great art deserves great strategy.
There are many talented independent artists whose music deserves to be heard. What they need is someone in their corner who understands how audiences are built, how markets work, and how a compelling story gets told at scale.
Lions Den Music Production was created to be exactly that.