Leigh Newsome is a technology executive, entrepreneur, and Adjunct Professor in NYU Steinhardt's Music Technology program, where he teaches Audio for the Web. He brings over 25 years of experience building and leading product and engineering organizations across startups and global companies, with a career rooted in audio technology.
Leigh began his audio career at Digidesign, the company that created Pro Tools. They were recognized with a Technical Grammy Award in 2001 and an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement in 2004. Leigh holds five US patents in audio and video mobile technologies and has worked across organizations including Avid/Digidesign, WPP, Kantar/Millward Brown, and littleBits.
Today, Leigh is a founding partner at Hoola Hoop, an advisory firm where he coaches and advises startup and growth-stage technology leaders as a CTO practitioner. His practice focuses on AI adoption, engineering leadership, product strategy, and the evolving role of the CTO in an era of agentic AI.
At NYU, Leigh's teaching connects the technical and creative dimensions of audio on the web, spanning the Web Audio API, web-based spatial audio, streaming, and emerging audio formats. He draws on his practitioner background to give students direct exposure to how audio technology is built and deployed in real-world products.
Leigh is a fixed-wing pilot and guitar player, though never at the same time.