Music Managers Forum


The Music Managers Forum is a professional community of music managers. At present its membership stands at over 500 managers based in the UK with global businesses and a wider network of 1700 managers in the USA.

History and governance

Founded in 1992 at the In the City conference in Manchester and formally incorporated in January 1993 as The Managers Forum Ltd. and known as the IMF, it changed its name in 2005 to the Music Managers Forum to avoid ambiguity with other organisations, becoming known as the MMF.
The co-chairs at the time Diane Wagg and Stephen Budd appointed Annabella Coldrick as CEO in January 2016 with previous CEO Jon Webster becoming president.
In May 2017, Jon Webster stood down as president.
Following a change in governance, in July 2017 a round of board elections was held. Designed to increase diversity and inclusivity, the new rules mean the board must rotate annually. Board members are now elected to serve only a fixed three-year term, and at least five members will be required to stand down each year.
During 2017’s board elections, Stephen Budd stepped down as co-chair, with Diane Wagg becoming the sole-chair, and Biffy Clyro co-manager Paul Craig stepping into the newly created role of Vice Chair.
In 2018 Paul Craig was elected by the Board as Chair with Kwame Kwaten as Vice Chair. By February 2020 the MMF had over 800 members.

Training programmes

The MMF runs training programmes, courses and events designed to educate and inform artist managers.
Courses and events run so far have included the MMF Essentials of Music Management Day course which runs four times a year, the Artist Management Development Programme and the MMF/MPA Music Publishing Programme as well as regular seminars, open meetings, roundtables and workshops.

Advocacy

MMF represents its members views through consultations and submissions to UK/EU/US governments, statements within the media, membership of UK Music, the European Music Managers Alliance and dialogue with collecting societies.
The MMF has spawned affiliated organisations around the world, such as in Australia, Canada, Ireland, France and the USA, as well as an international umbrella organisation, the IMMF.
Campaigns the MMF are currently participating in include “Dissecting the Digital Dollar,” and tackling Secondary Ticketing through the “FanFair Alliance” campaign.