Rob Stone, Co-Founder of Cornerstone Agency and the Fader Magazine, Dies at 55

Rob Stone, who co-founded the influential music marketing company Cornerstone Agency and its magazine the Fader, died Monday after a battle with cancer, according to social media posts from his family and his longtime friend and co-CEO Jon Cohen. He was 55.

“It is with a heavy heart and sadness we share the news of the passing of Rob Stone,” he family wrote. “Rob bravely fought cancer over the past year. He chose to keep his diagnosis private in order to focus on his family. He was a truly amazing person who lived an incredible life.”

The agency, which Stone launched with Loud Records founder Steve Rifkind in 1996 — who stepped aside for Stone’s childhood friend Cohen the following year — became a pioneering force in the music marketing space, employing the tactics of hip-hop street marketing teams and bringing dozens of major brands into the music space, including Sprite, Bushmills, Converse, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Reebok and others, including the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks. The pair founded the Fader — a large-stock, photo-heavy magazine featuring cutting-edge artists — in 1999 as a companion to the marketing company, and used both to create a template that was quickly followed by Vice, Complex and Conde Nast, among others. based in New York but with offices in Los Angeles, London and Sao Paulo, the company grew into a mini-empire of more than 100 employees and more than $100 million in annual revenue. It later expanded into film with Fader Films, which Stone focused on later in his career. It released documentaries on the late rapper XXXTentacion in 2022, including “Look at Me,” among other projects.

Related Stories

Tony Ratings Have a Long Gap to Clear, Despite Efforts to Mimic Larger Shows