Michael Eames is a trained composer, songwriter, and pianist who majored in music at Cornell University and completed the Certificate Program in Film Scoring at UCLA Extension; he also secured a minor in Business Management from Cornell.

As President of PEN since its inception in 1994, Michael oversees all aspects of the operation. He was chosen to serve (along with 4 other music publishers and 5 songwriters) on the Unclaimed Royalties Oversight Committee (UROC) of The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) and is the current UROC chair. He also proudly serves on the Independent Publishers Advisory Council (IPAC) of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), and the Advisory Boards of Songwriters Of North America (SONA) and the Hawaii Songwriting Festival. He also previously served as the National President of the Association Of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) from 2015-2018 and served as its National Vice President from 2013-2014.

Michael wrote the music publishing section of the Hal Leonard/Rowman & Littlefield-published book entitled Five Star Music Makeover: The Independent Artist’s Guide for Singers, Songwriters, Bands, Producers and Self Publishers (2016) and is co-author (with Bobby Borg) of the book Introduction To Music Publishing For Musicians whose second edition is scheduled for release in Spring 2025 and is already used in many curriculums across the country. He is a frequent guest speaker in both real and virtual classrooms, festivals and panel discussions worldwide.