2022 BOARD NOMINATIONS
The Board nominations for 2022 have now closed and we are delighted to announce this year’s candidates. The Board will be confirmed at the MMF AGM in June.
The Board nominees include; Sammy Andrews (re-standing), Jill Hollywood (re-standing), Niamh Byrne, Stephen Taverner and Clare Wright.
NIAMH BYRNE
Management company: Eleven Management
Roster: Gorillaz, Graham Coxton, Riz Ahmed, Bastille, Blur, Damon Albarn, The Clash, The Dawn of May, Jamie Hewlett, The Good the Bad and The Queen, and Naomi Scott.
Niamh Byrne co-founded Eleven Management with Regine Moylett as a prime example of a progressive management company navigating its way through the often murky waters of the music business.
Eleven Management was honoured with the Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the 2017 Artist and Manager Awards for ground-breaking work on the Gorillaz’ multi-dimensional fifth album campaign for Humanz, which included a VR video, an augmented reality app, a 15k capacity festival, arena tour, multiple brand partnerships, peaked at No.2 in the UK, No.1 in the US charts, and topped iTunes rankings in more than 50 countries within hours of release. In 2022, and Eleven Management had another huge breakthrough with Riz Ahmed winning the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
Byrne started her music business career working in recording studios after studying a sound engineering module. She also worked in retail working at Tower Records before a landing a job in management came about with Chris Morrison of CMO Management in the early ‘90s, where she first worked with Albarn and Blur, as well as The Jesus and Mary Chain and Elastica.
Byrne’s management business continues to raise the bar with new creative partnerships and ideas. “The role of management has changed massively. It’s much more of a partnership now and we work very much hand in hand with our artists. The business has changed too so we need to forge new ways of doing things. There are much more innovative ways to get your music out there, you don’t have to be beholden to the traditional model. It’s an exciting time and the artist is definitely in the driving seat.”
STEPHEN TAVERNER
Management company: East City Management
Roster: AK Patterson, alt-J, Ash, The Big Moon, Kodaline, Self Esteem, Sorry, Suzi Wu, Whom Sonny Green, Will Joseph Cook, Wolf Alice.
JILL HOLLYWOOD
Management company: Echo Beach Management
Roster: Jacknife Lee, Tim Bran, Roy Kerr (MyRiot), Ash Howes, Davide Rossi, Dave Bascombe,Cam Blackwood, Chris Zane, Q, Lorna Blackwood, Ash Workman, Ben Jackson Cook.
This will be my second term on the MMF Board. As COVID turned everything upside down for us all, I feel as though what I set out to do on the board has only just gotten started so hoping for a further 3 years to get more work done.This work mainly consists of raising the particular needs of the songwriting and production community. While there is a good amount of synergy with the needs of the artist community, I believe that having an advocate that is solely focused on improving terms for writers/ producers can help bring some particular awareness to the very important work the MMF do with the Digital Dollar research initiative and the efforts to fix streaming. I have learnt so much these last few years and really enjoyed getting involved in the incredible Accelerator program that I’d love the chance to continue this for another 3 years.
Management company: Deviate Management
Roster: Goldkey, Lola Lennox, Oh My God! It’s the Church.
I have been managing bands since my teens, starting with a white knuckle ride with Ginger and the Wildhearts and a host of others in between leading to my current roster including Goldkey, Lola Lennox, Oh My God! It’s the Church. I am also part of the management team across several management companies, artists and clients in my capacity as digital advisor including Annie Lennox. In years gone by I owned a music tech co, ran high profile activism campaigns within the music business and I founded and am now CEO of a digital marketing agency (Deviate Digital) where we work with over 50 artists at any one time, some directly via management, some via labels, some via promoters, some via distributors…as part of our daily work we deal with all stakeholders & services in our business. This allows me a real 360 view of issues & challenges in the business and I often have, and voice strong views on how we as an industry can work together for the greater good. I believe I will continue to bring a new and varied understanding of not only digital matters facing managers and artists but a broad range of knowledge and opinions on wider matters that the MMF board and it’s membership may find helpful.
CLARE WRIGHT
Roster: JFDR, Æ Mak, Cruel Sister and Automotion
I’m an experienced and driven London based artist manager whose roster includes JFDR, Æ Mak, Cruel Sister and Automotion. I have over fifteen years’ experience in the music industry and my background includes working with internationally renowned rock band, Sigur Rós to developing brand new artists leading to Mercury and Ivor Novello nominations. I was part of the Accelerator manager cohort in 2020 which I enjoyed immensely and would love to be considered as a board member as the rights of managers and artists are incredibly important to me.