Working group

Kim Bayley studied at the University of Surrey and at Guilford Law College. Upon graduating with a BSC in Law, German and French she started her business career with Lovell White Durrant Solicitors. Following a further spell at Coopers & Lybrand in Corporate Finance, Kim spent seven years with West LB Panmure in Media Investment Banking. She joined ERA in 2002 as Director of Development and was appointed Secretary General in 2004 and Director General in 2007. As well as being responsible for the day to day running of ERA she is a Director of the Official Charts Company and participates in many entertainment industry forums.

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Melvin Benn had a ten year background of producing political and campaigning festivals throughout the UK before establishing The Festival Office Ltd in 1989 to create and produce festivals for the Mean Fiddler.

This was the same year that the Mean Fiddler took over the Reading Festival, which has sold out ever since. In 1999, Benn took the event to Leeds. In 1996 Benn took ‘The Festival Office’ to be part of the Mean Fiddler Music Group and became Managing Director. In 1999 he became Group CEO taking Mean Fiddler and its associated companies into a plc structure. This made Mean Fiddler the first publicly quoted music company on to the UK Stock Exchange.

Benn is also the licensee for all Finsbury Park outdoor shows and sits as a representative on the Concert Promoters Association (CPA). He was influential in re-writing the Guide to Health and Safety at Outdoor Events (‘the Pop Code’), and regularly makes presentations to the Emergency Planning College, the police and other bodies.

In August 2007 Benn sold the majority of the Mean Fiddler Music Group venues as well as the Mean Fiddler Music Group name to concentrate on the full festival portfolio ; Carling Weekend Reading & Leeds, Latitude, Rise, St Patrick’s Day, Fleadh and the involvement with Glastonbury Festival under the new name of Festival Republic.

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Kim Chappell began working for Simon Fuller ten years ago and moved to the 19 London offices in 2003. Since then she has directed and produced a wide range of events of special importance to 19, including a private flagship concert with all 19’s UK and US artists at the Royal Albert Hall, in celebration of 19 years of 19. After internationally producing the pre-recorded content for LIVE 8 in 2005, Kim has focused on leading 19’s growing slate of social, environmental and charitable work. In 2006 she co-ordinated 19, ITV and the Prince’s Trust during the production of the Prince’s Trust 30th Anniversary TV show and more recently worked with Annie Lennox on SING; a project designed to help women and children living with HIV and AIDS in Africa. For the last 18 months she has been event producer for Peace One Day, which has seen her producing concerts and film events in the Royal Albert Hall and this year The Nokia Theatre in New York alongside Peace One Day’s founder, Jeremy Gilley.

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Dan is the Chief Financial Officer of SonyBMG UK, having joined in 2007. 

Dan studied at Mathematics at Durham University and then did a Masters degree at Cambridge University.  He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen in 1995, and afterwards spent several years at Pepsico, working in its European restaurants division.

In 2000, Dan joined the Boston Consulting Group and worked as a strategy consultant across a wide range of industries, based in London, New York and Los Angeles, before moving to AOL in 2004.  At AOL, Dan held several positions before being promoted to CFO in 2006.  After the sale of AOL’s ISP business to Carphone Warehouse, Dan joined SonyBMG.

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Susanna Eastburn is Director, Music Strategy at Arts Council England. Before joining the Arts Council in 2008, she was Executive Producer of Lift (London International Festival of Theatre) where she has helped lead one of the world’s most respected international theatre organisations. Born and educated in Cornwall before studying music at King’s College, Cambridge, her previous roles include Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Chair of the Society for the Promotion of New Music and a Governor of Leeds College of Music. She has also been a fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme.

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Phil is Managing Director and Co-owner, Continental Clothing Company.  He co-founded the business in 1994, and immediately it became a leading supplier of blank  apparel to the music industry, especially for tour and concert merchandise. In 2005, Phil established Continental in USA, to better serve music artists touring on both sides of the Atlantic. He has led the way in terms of product innovation and setting out business ethics.

Continental Clothing now has offices in London, Berlin, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles, supplying the music trade with consistently high quality merchandise for all new artists and international stars alike.

Most recently, Phil has been instrumental in mapping out a new direction for the merchandising industry – the newly created EarthPositive standard for textile products adopts a holistic approach to environmental, labour and climate change issues. Phil works closely with the Environmental Justice Foundation, the Soil Association, the Fair Wear Foundation and the Carbon Trust. Continental Clothing is the first textile company to carbon footprint its products, and is the pilot partner in the carbon labelling initiative. The EarthPositive Apparel has achieved a 90% reduction of its GHG footprint. Under Phil’s direction, Continental continues to innovate in low carbon apparel and business ethics.

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With more than 30 years experience in the live music industry, Rob Hallett is recognised as one of Europe’s most successful live music promoters. Amongst the artists he has been involved with in recent years are Bon Jovi, Prince, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Kanye West, Mary J Blige, Alicia Keys to name but a few.

In the 1980s, Rob helped build the careers of such acts as Duran Duran, Adam and The Ants, UB40, Talk Talk, Dexys Midnight Runners and Kajagoogoo. Since his introduction to the live music industry as a 16-year-old kid promoting gigs in a local Sussex pub, Rob has evolved into one of the very few executives in the music industry who has experience across the whole spectrum of the business. As well as enjoying success as an agent, promoter and manager – of whom Youssou N’Dour is still a client, Rob has been a festival programmer, tour manager, music publisher, record label managing director and has even owned recording studios. Rob was a director of Mean Fiddler Music Group, where he established the company’s touring division and developed it into one of Europe’s promoting powerhouses. Prior to his time at Mean Fiddler, Rob spent 10 years at Marshall Arts, which facilitated his transition from being an artist agent to an award winning, international concert promoter.

In February 2005, Rob Hallett was appointed to the newly created role of Senior Vice President of AEG Live UK. Based in London’s Canary Wharf, Rob’s office overlooks the O2, which sister company AEG redeveloped into the most state-of-the-art entertainment complex in Europe. Rob is now President, International Touring, AEG Live.

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Ben Lambert is a qualified accountant with 8 years experience in the music, media and retail sectors. His career began with a graduate placement at Warner Music, followed by a short period at internet/mobile company Mviva, prior to a move to Carphone Warehouse. Ben joined PPL/VPL in 2001, and has held several positions before being promoted to Finance Director in 2006.

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Paul Latham joined Apollo Leisure on his 24th birthday on 24th September 1984, in the role of Assistant Theatre Manager at the Apollo Theatre Oxford. At the time, Apollo had only six theatres.

Through acquisition and growth, Apollo Leisure became the leading UK venue owner/ operators. When Apollo Leisure was sold in 1999 to SFX, Paul became the Vice President of Operations responsible for Sheffield Arena, Cardiff International Arena, The Point Dublin, Hammersmith and Manchester Apollo as well as managing a ticketing business selling 6 million tickets per annum.

During his career Paul has event managed and operated three Eurovision Song Concerts, MTV Music Awards, three Royal Variety Performances, the World Premiere of Riverdance and Lord of the Dance and was Artist and Royal security at Live Aid in 1985.

Promoted to President of UK Music and Venues of Live Nation in 2003, Paul is responsible for the most prolific and prosperous music promotions company in the UK. He controls venues, event promotions and creation, marketing partnerships, ticketing and security services.

Paul is also a consultant on several new-build arena developments across the UK and Europe.

A divorcee with two boys of whom he is very proud, the little leisure time Paul has is normally following horse racing, American football and the noble art of crown green bowls.

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Rod started ‘ITB‘ in 1978 (along with partner Barry Dickins) and has seen it grow to one of the world’s leading music agencies. They exclusively represent some 200 artists. Rod personally represents (among others) Aerosmith, Christina Aguilera, Lenny Kravitz, Ozzy Osbourne (and Black Sabbath), Pearl Jam, Placebo, Rage Against The Machine, Robert Plant, Shakira, The Verve and The Who.

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Conor McNicholas has been editor of NME since August 2002. His first professional post on a magazine was on a fledgling Manchester publication called Sub where he wrote a spoof horoscope under the pen name of Snufkin. Conor went on to write for the dance press holding senior positions at both Ministry and MIxmag magazines before going on to edit Muzik.

During his editorship Conor has won several industry awards including Consumer Magazine Editor of the Year (Periodical Publishers Association Editorial and Publishing Excellence Awards, May 2005), Entertainment Magazine Editor of the Year (British Society of Magazine Editors, November 2005), Tour of the Year for the NME Awards Tour 2006 (Vodafone Live Music Awards, October 2006), Editor of the Year and Music Magazine of the Year (Record of the Day Music Journalism and PR Awards, November 2006 ) and Brand Building Initiative of the Year for Club NME (British Society of Magazine Editors, November 2006). In 2007 Conor was one of the judges for the Mercury Music Prize, in which The Klaxons won.

Conor is considered a prominent spokesman for the music industry and was listed as one of the 1000 most influential people in London by the Evening Standard in October 2007. He knows his music and his days at NME are a far cry from his horoscope column. He knows nothing about astrology.

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Justin Morris is the Chief Financial Officer of EMI Music UK and Ireland, and has been since 2004.

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Roly Oliver did his first crewing gig at Trent Polytechnic in 1986 and set upon a career in sound engineering. Cutting his teeth in the East Midlands music scene he worked on the PA for many up and coming artists and shows including those promoted by the likes of SJM and Metropolis in their early years. He then toured as both sound engineer and production manager with artists from Tool to the Pet Shop Boys until he joined Britannia Row Productions in 2000 as an account handler. He now looks after acts from Robbie Williams, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Foo Fighters to Amy Winehouse and Goldfrapp.

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Steve Porter is Chief Executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance - one of Europe’s leading royalty collecting societies, which licenses music rights and pays royalties to 50,000 composers, songwriters and music publishers in the UK and many thousands more around the world.

Steve joined the Alliance in 1998 having worked in senior management positions in the record industry and with Price Waterhouse in London.

First as Alliance Finance Director and latterly as Managing Director, Steve has extensive knowledge of the worldwide business of music rights management – particularly in relation to online business models.

Steve’s experience of the music industry and with other collecting societies globally, together with his commitment to improved service for members and customers alike makes him ideally suited to drive the MCPS-PRS Alliance forward to reach its full potential.

Steve recently led the Alliance team in negotiations with Swedish society, STIM, that led to their announcing a joint initiative to create a new world class processing centre for music rights administration - ICE.

He is Chairman of CELAS, the Central European Licensing and Administration Service, operated by the MCPS-PRS Alliance and GEMA to license EMI Music Publishing’s catalogue for online and mobile usage.

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Bryan Raven is Managing Director of White Light and has been with the company for over 20 years. His career started with a brief spell at Theatre Projects after spending two years realising that lighting was a lot more fun than mechanical engineering at Imperial College. White Light now has a turnover of £13M and over 100 staff, and is one of the biggest suppliers of lighting equipment for live performance in the UK. Traditionally known for supplying theatre shows such as Miss Saigon, Lord of The Rings & Mary Poppins; the company has diversified and grown so much since moving to Wimbledon in 2001 that theatre only accounts for 25% of the turnover.

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International MD Beggars Group.

Biography to follow.

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Simon studied at the University of Exeter, graduating with a BA in Economics in 1993 and then trained as an accountant at Coopers & Lybrand for three years. Soon after qualifying as an ACA, he moved to TW Internal Audit, spending a year and half constantly abroad, managing audit assignments at affiliates of Warner Bros, Warner Home Video and Warner Music all round the world. In 1998, he joined Warner Music International as Finance Director for Asia Pacific. In June 2002, he was posted to Tokyo for 2 years as the Executive Consultant at WM Japan. On returning to the UK in 2004, he became VP of Finance & Operations, EMEA before being appointed CFO, WMUK in 2007.

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