Sjoerd Koppert

Who is Sjoerd Koppert?

Sjoerd Auke Koppert, a.k.a. Sjoko is a Dutch-born recording engineer and producer who is now based in Carpinteria, California. He was the "sound guy" behind many successful Dutch bands in the early '70's, before going on to work with numerous high profile international artists. Since then, Sjoerd has built a solid background of expertise in the music industry, business development, and consultancy.

Sjoerd’s involvement in the music industry started in the mid 60’s, when Dutch bands like Golden Earring, Focus, Shocking Blue and various others broke through on the International scene. Recognized as one of the leading engineers in Europe at the time, he worked with many top acts, from The Who, Pink Floyd, ABBA, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, the Beach Boys to Elton John, Rod Stewart, the Faces, The Rolling Stones, the Doobie Brothers, J. Geils, Frank Zappa, and many more. His sound design expertise also lead to the establishment of I.M.S., which grew to become Europe’s leading Sound Corporation at the time, as well as the development of the first live surround-sound systems.

He left the music industry in the '80's in order to concentrate on "normal" business, and made a name for himself in corporate and logistics consultancy. After a period with Texas Instruments, where his marketing strategy and lobbying led to the acceptance of hand-held programmable calculators throughout the EEC’s education system and a 78% market share for T.I., he accepted an offer from UK based Lex Service PLC. Starting with responsibility for project management and development strategy, he soon became an operating board member and strategist for Lex Specialist Transport division, consisting of a group of eight companies. After the Lex Group’s decision to divest from their transport and logistics interests, Sjoerd had the task of arranging management buyouts and company sales – and managed to do so without the loss of a single job of the 14.000 jobs involved.