Allen Mask, a 2006 alumnus of Chapel Hill High School, was recently named one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” in marketing, recognized by the business magazine as one of its 600 “young stars.” He leads several marketing teams at Sonos, a company known for its speakers, and writes and produces hip-hop music in his spare time.
At Sonos, Mask says, “no two days are the same.” He was recently a part of the campaign launching Sonos One, the company’s new smart speaker. Last year, he gave a talk at a launch event, and he is currently satisfied with the success his teams have had. In “30 Under 30,” Forbes cited Mask for his work at Google, Airbnb, and Sonos.
“It’s hard,” Mask said, to balance his time between working and making music. Upon graduating from high school, he had hoped to be more involved in creative arts. “I’m fortunate to work in the music industry, so I’m surrounded by the arts – but in a very different way than I may have originally thought.”
He suggests that high school students “expose themselves to as much as they can: different subjects, different people, different places.” He added, “Push the limits, go outside your comfort zone and do whatever you can to get a variety and diversity of experience and perspective.”
Mask has always been interested in music. He formed a band while in high school, performed at Battles of the Bands and toured the Southeast. Chapel Hill English teacher Michael Irwin encouraged him to enter a national slam-poetry competition, Brave New Voices, in 2005.
Mask remembers hearing the competition announced over the intercom. “I felt moved to write something…That was the first thing I’ve really written,” Mask said. “[Irwin] was an incredible mentor. He still, to this day, is, and always will be, one of the most important people in my life.”
Irwin even helped Mask choose to apply and go to the University of North Carolina (UNC), inspiring him to pursue a major in journalism.
“When Al was at Chapel Hill High, he was good at everything he did. He was a strong student, a prolific leader, an artistic innovator, a musical experimenter. He did it all, and he did it with joy,” Irwin said. “I never guessed what he might professionally pursue; I just knew that he would touch lives and make the world a better place regardless of what he did.”
Several of Irwin’s lessons remain with Mask, too. “Classic American fiction is still one of my biggest influences,” Mask said, noting that the interest is unlike what would be expected of someone at a tech company. “There are a lot of books that I savor, cherish and love that I’m sure [high school students] probably hate but that I have a totally different appreciation for now.”
Mask graduated from the UNC School of Media and Journalism in 2010 with minors in music and entrepreneurship. While he was enrolled in the university, he co-founded Vinyl Records, a nonprofit music label that is still student-run at UNC. Mask was also involved with a private equity fund at the school and held several internships. He moved to New York in the summer of 2010 to work as an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs with his first-hand knowledge of how early-stage companies are run and developed.
He recorded two albums, Pilot Season (2010) and Sweet Dreams (2011), while working in New York. After a blog and several media outlets linked Mask’s music career to Goldman Sachs, he received pressure from the company’s higher-ups. Mask was given an ultimatum to choose between music and Goldman Sachs: “no more performing, no more recording and no speaking to the media,” The New York Times reported.
Mask decided to quit his job and move to San Francisco, California, where his then-fiancée, now-wife, lived, and he began working in marketing at Google. He was hired by Airbnb in 2015, serving as head of global marketing, until early last year when he took a job at Sonos.
Mask is currently working on a new long-playing album, his third major release and first since 2011. “I don’t have a lot of commercial aspirations,” Mask said. “I just want to put out another full-length, see how it goes, and keep writing music.”
Mask’s music website is http://thinkopation.com/. Watch “Allen Mask’s Right Now” on YouTube.
