His first credit was assisting legendary film sound designer Walter Murch on Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Broucek volunteered to work the graveyard shift with Murch.  He discovered “all music is sound, and all sound can be music.”

Broucek’s love for music began in the Chicago suburbs. His dad was a salesman, but a singer at heart, and taught Broucek and his three siblings to sing in four-part harmony. As a teenager, he learned piano, guitar and played in bands.

After graduating from Columbia College Chicago, and studying with jazz composer William Russo at Columbia’s Center for New Music, he moved to California—first to San Francisco then Los Angeles.  He secured a job at the prestigious recording studio, The Record Plant…as a janitor. Within six months, he was on the recording crew for the Eagles concert album, The Long Run, then onto projects with such music icons as Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, and Stevie Wonder; film soundtracks including songs for An Officer and a Gentleman and Tootsie. This led to Broucek playing a key team role in modernizing and reopening scoring Stage M on the Paramount lot.

After a stint running the Record Plant in Sausalito, then the U.S. arm of  Fairlight Instruments, Broucek became a music supervisor on the high school drama, TV 101. He and future business partner, Evyen Klean, oversaw hiring rock artists to compose the series episodes including Stewart Copeland, Todd Rundgren, and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. Boucek and Klean went on to start a long term partnership specializing in music supervision on the landmark Baywatch series and many independent films.

In 1996, Broucek became a music executive at New Line Cinema and five years later he was named president of music at New Line. He managed orchestral score projects including Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings and produced soundtrack songs by the likes of Annie Lennox and Roger Waters. After New Line merged fully with Warner Bros., he became president of music at the studio in 2009, where he also oversees the studio’s soundtrack label, WaterTower Music.

From grand cinematic spectacles to heart-warming dramas, Broucek has been involved in many pop culture film events.  He continues to collaborate on many projects with legendary and acclaimed composers—including  Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Ludwig Goransson, Hildur Gudnadottir, Mychael Danna, Harry Gregson Williams, Ben Wallfisch, Lorne Balfe, Steven Price—as well as musical artists for films such as Bryan Ferry, Renee Fleming, Sir James Galway, Enya, Hozier and RZA. Broucek has overseen the music for film projects including Barbie, Wonka, Elvis, The Dark Knight Rises, Harry Potter, Elf, The Great Gatsby, Argo, Inception, Wonder Woman and Gravity.

Broucek received an honorary PhD from Columbia College Chicago in 2018.