A Team.
Alain Begun - Co-Founder
Alain spent 25 years in national media running marketing and business development for leading brands including People, Better Homes & Gardens, Fortune, The Week, and Readers Digest. Alain spent several years living in Singapore leading the launch of Fortune Asia.
In November 2018, Alain acquired and revitalized River Journal. The publication is delivered to nearly every household in Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, Irvington, Briarcliff and Ossining. Riverjournalonline.com reaches more than 20,000 visitors per month. In January 2021, Alain launched River Journal North to serve the communities of Croton-on-Hudson, Cortlandt and Peekskill. Together his media properties reach 150,000 readers per month.
Alain has lived in the River Towns for twenty years. He’s a graduate of Rutgers University (BA) and Rutgers Business School (MBA). He lives in Briarcliff with his partner, Alisa, his son Hunter, his step-daughter Sydney, and their dogs Bo and Brooklyn. Alain’s daughter Isabel attends NYU.
Liz Goodyear - Co-Founder
Liz has zero musical talent.
But she loves going to shows and festivals, and compulsively buys instruments. One day, she reasons (irrationally), she’ll find the one that comes naturally.
Liz started out in digital marketing down on Wall St, working on the brand side as the VP of Marketing for a bond-trading software developer. She then moved to the agency side, working for Ride5 Media Group, a boutique marketing sh. There she developed clients’ branded media campaigns.
About a year into her time at Ride5, she transitioned to the agency’s video and film production division, where she was the Director of Branded Media. In this role she learned the in’s and out’s of production. The highlights of her time with Ride5 include producing a festival-winning feature documentary, along with several music videos for Warner Music Group.
In early 2013, Ride5’s video division was acquired by Allied International Marketing. With Allied, Liz produced everything from a travel web-series for Mercedes-Benz smart car, to monthly talking-heads videos for KPMG, to an eight-market TV commercial campaign for Cigna, to weekly NFL segments for BBC.
At the beginning of 2021, Liz started her live music production and promotion company, Live Goods Music, with the aim of bringing more good, live music up to her neck of the woods.
Live Goods produced a couple shows in Peekskill and then began producing First River Festival, an indoor indie festival. They signed on Parquet Courts, Guided by Voices, Waxahatchee, The Felice Brothers, The Nude Party, Jelani Aryeh, Dehd, Liz Cooper, Small Black, and Katy Kirby to perform. First River was ultimately postponed due to Delta, but the seeds were planted and the skids greased.
In the wake of First River’s postponement, Liz met media master Alain Begun. Together they formed River Towns Music Group. Their goal with RTMG is to bring the best live music and entertainment to the River Towns north of New York City.
Liz is from Dallas, TX. She graduated from the University of Texas with a BA in English, and has lived in New York ever since — although she’ll always carry a torch for Austin. Liz lives in Westchester with her husband and five kids (not a typo). She’s still trying to figure out which one will be her drummer.
Lucia Ballas-Traynor - Director of Sponsorships
Lucia has more than 25 years’ experience in marketing and media and has been at the helm of leading Hispanic media brands such as Univision's Galavision, Paramount’s MTV Tr3s, Meredith’s People en Español and CafeMedia’s Mamaslatinas.
Prior to joining River Towns Media in late 2021, Lucia was the EVP of Client Partnerships for Hemisphere Media Group, owner and operator of five leading Hispanic cable networks in the U.S. and Latin America. In this role, Lucia developed, set, and implemented the Sales strategy across the company’s five-network portfolio.
Prior to joining Hemisphere in 2015, Lucia was co-founder and EVP of CafeMedia's MamásLatinas, a bilingual digital destination dedicated to connecting, entertaining and empowering Latina moms with a dynamic community and engaging editorial content.
As Publisher of People en Español from 2008 to 2011, Lucia was charged with overseeing all sales and marketing for the magazine and website. She was recognized in the market for leading two groundbreaking HOT (Hispanic Opinion Tracker) Studies “What Matters Most to Latinas In Recessionary Times” and “Roles, Roots and Realities: Latinas New Cultural Identity”.
During her tenure as General Manager of MTV Tr3s, the TV network became the most widely distributed channel dedicated to bicultural Latino youth.
Under her leadership as General Manager of Galavision, she grew the network’s young demographic and nearly doubled the distribution, making Galavision one of the country’s most popular network for Hispanic teens and young adults.
Lucia has profiled in The Hollywood Reporter’s “Latino Power 50” list. She has also been recognized as a top “Women in Music” by Billboard Magazine, one of the “25 Most Powerful Hispanic Women in the Entertainment Industry” by The Hollywood Reporter, and one of “10 Women to Watch” by Multichannel News Magazine.
Lucia is a bilingual and bicultural native of Chile. She is a graduate from New York University and lives with her husband and two pooches in Tarrytown, NY.