Billboard’s High Enterprise Managers 2022 Record – Billboard

Elvis was indignant — and broke.

In a Nineteen Seventies showdown in Las Vegas with Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley fired his longtime private supervisor — solely to have Parker reply by presenting the singer with a multimillion-dollar invoice for unrecouped bills that went again many years, from the price of gasoline for Elvis’ first journey to the Louisiana Hayride radio present to gasoline for the Lisa Marie, his personal jet named after his daughter.

In his hit movie Elvis, director Baz Luhrmann depicts the confrontation — a real story, based on Alanna Nash, writer of the definitive biography The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley — and in his dramatization of the episode, a distraught Elvis lashes out at his father, Vernon, blaming him for his lack of oversight: “You’re my enterprise supervisor! You’re imagined to be taking good care of this!”

Elvis ought to have had the steering of one of many advisers profiled right here.

Members of the 2022 class of Billboard’s High Enterprise Managers — nominated by their corporations and friends and chosen by our editors — have guided artists and executives by way of the pandemic. However now, they face an array of challenges not seen in years.

“Monetary instability, the financial downturn, persisting inflation, greater borrowing prices triggered by the rise in rates of interest, cybersecurity and retention of key expertise” — all are among the many most urgent points going through enterprise managers, says Maria del Pilar Lopez, a director with Citrin Cooperman.

The supply of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters has allowed touring to renew. However reveals proceed to be rescheduled as a result of pandemic, including to the monetary pressures on artists already coping with manufacturing prices pushed greater by inflation, rising insurance coverage premiums and extra.

The continued power of the vendor’s marketplace for music catalogs guarantees windfalls for some however comes with caveats, says Sean Granat, a associate with CohnReznick. “A few of my shoppers have been inclined to need to promote their publishing rights for a fast infusion of money,” he says. “If a shopper needs to maneuver ahead with this plan of action, I be sure that they’re conscious of what they’d be giving up by way of management, future income and the consequences a sale would have on their property.”

Enterprise managers cope with exhausting numbers but in addition the unpredictable feelings of their shoppers. As Michael Kaplan, managing associate with Miller Kaplan, says, “We’re experiencing a glut of FOMO — worry of lacking out — particularly associated to unorthodox investments and an extreme willingness to soak up threat” within the crypto, meme inventory and non-fungible token (NFT) areas.

Then there are the shoppers with the extra uncommon funding plans, from garlic merchandise to dinosaur skulls. “I did just lately have a shopper really feel they had been turning into too recognizable of their yellow sports activities automotive — so they’d it painted vibrant purple,” says Kristin Lee, founding father of enterprise administration agency KLBM. “They stated it was an funding of their safety.”

Fasbender Monetary Administration founder/president Tina Fasbender provides: “I’ve been doing this for 35 years — and ‘uncommon’ is getting weirder and weirder.”

Iván Alarcón
Co-founder/CEO, Vibras Lab

Alarcón says that regardless of “the rise in touring prices [and] scarcity of kit and personnel” making excursions exhausting to “price range, plan precisely and execute” this previous yr, Vibras Lab has served as CFO for Latin music’s largest stadium and enviornment excursions for acts like Dangerous Bunny, Grupo Firme and Karol G. The corporate additionally performed an element in closing the collaboration between J Balvin and Air Jordan, in addition to renegotiating Karol G’s publishing cope with Kobalt. “The music-catalog gross sales increase has made us a agency that appears deeper into our artists’ catalogs,” says Alarcón. “What we advocate to anyone that’s planning to promote their catalog is to be sure that the funding return of the web quantity acquired from the sale of the catalog is greater than the royalties acquired from the catalog.

Belva Anakwenze
Principal proprietor, Abacus Monetary Administration Group

For Abacus, the massive story of the previous 18 months has been getting its live-entertainment shoppers again to work, says Anakwenze, noting that the sector’s continued volatility within the wake of the pandemic has required diligent engagement between Abacus and the artists it really works with. The complete-service agency additionally handles enterprise administration, tax preparation, digital CFO companies and extra, with Anakwenze emphasizing the schooling of creatives. (Together with a few of her skilled friends profiled right here, Anakwenze declines to call musicians she advises, citing shopper confidentiality.)

Most Urgent Situation: “With a number of festivals being shut down early for security considerations, many festivalgoers are in search of occasion refunds. This impacts artists’ capacity to receives a commission on the contracted quantity, however but artists have exhausting manufacturing prices that need to be paid.”

Claudia Arcay
Senior vp, Loud and Stay

Loud and Stay’s Arcay actively helped artists return to the street. As touring resumed, she sought to reestablish demand for stay reveals. “The pandemic has been extraordinarily detrimental to the trade, and artists had been a number of the most affected,” Arcay says. Throughout the final 18 months, Loud and Stay curated 350 reveals and bought over 2 million tickets throughout the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. It additionally produced and managed reveals for Camilo, Farruko, Ricardo Arjona and others.

Most Urgent Situation: “The incremental prices of touring, that are possible at an all-time excessive. Components [for this] embody the influence of inflation [and] elevated gasoline and basic manufacturing prices — staffing, lighting, sound, tools rental, and many others. — a lot of that are up greater than 30% versus pre-pandemic ranges.”

Jesús Arredondo
Luis Del Rio
Heads of finance reserving, Cárdenas Advertising and marketing Community

This yr, Del Rio managed “all monetary facets with the artist’s camp, venues, distributors and repair suppliers” for Dangerous Bunny’s two world excursions and all monetary issues for the U.S. run of Daddy Yankee’s farewell swing. Except for packing venues, CMN additionally has a hand in constructing them: Arredondo offered monetary evaluation for the brand new Coliseo Stay Bogotá in Colombia, together with administration of the development price range.

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “After the pandemic, uncommon investments turned the norm,” says Del Rio. “From jewellery to artwork to even acres of land in surprising areas.”

Louis Barajas
Co-founder/CEO, Lab Enterprise Administration Agency
Angie Barajas
Co-founder/COO, Lab Enterprise Administration Agency

Underneath its husband-and-wife management, LAB Enterprise Administration Agency has continued to broaden in 2022 with the addition of its U.S.-LATAM (Latin America) Tax Group, which works with and gives wealth and enterprise administration recommendation to up-and-coming artists. The Barajases even have employed extra in-house Latino professionals to assist with shoppers together with Mau y Ricky, Yandel and Nicky Jam. Louis’ function in offering monetary shopper advocacy on a nationwide degree to underserved communities will likely be mirrored in a 13-episode PBS TV collection he’ll co-host titled Alternative Knocks in November. He says many hedge fund managers have supplied to amass LAB’s shopper catalogs in 2022, and “planning for the clever use of these funds has opened many new alternatives to our artists.”

Funding Tip: “We consider 2023 will likely be an excellent alternative to buy actual property at discounted costs from the overinflated values we now have seen within the final couple of years,” says Louis.

Harrison Bauman
First vp of investments, Bauman Wealth Administration

Bauman sees his administration firm because the “monetary quarterback to our shoppers’ monetary wants” and notes catalog gross sales and the return of touring as the most important developments at the moment affecting them. Along with working intently with singer-songwriters to promote their music catalogs, Bauman gives long-term planning recommendation, together with facilitating the acquisition of a primary dwelling.

Most Urgent Situation: “Inflation, the rise of rates of interest and budgeting for the long run. We work intently with our shoppers to handle their day-to-day budgeting wants and … to construct extra sources of passive earnings.”

Tyson Beem
CEO, Gelfand Rennert & Feldman
Chris Fazzolari
Todd Kamelhar
John Menneci
Melissa Morton
Rick Mozenter
Mike Skeet
Managing administrators, Gelfand Rennert & Feldman

In 2022, 25-year GRF veteran Beem stepped into the corporate’s CEO function previously held by Todd Gelfand, who’s nonetheless lively within the agency’s management as a managing director and continues to give attention to his shoppers. Beem will keep the course that has enabled GRF to ship for its shoppers for 55 years: staying on prime of evolving enterprise alternatives and income streams — of late, potential catalog gross sales and the resumption of touring — in addition to managing threat and maintaining with adjustments in tax regulation. “We will’t solely be involved about gross earnings. Now we have to keep in mind that controlling prices is simply as vital to find out the viability of alternatives,” says Beem.

Marius Bercovici
Justin Kobay
Venicia Mestey
Bruce Seckendorf
Companions, LL Enterprise Administration

From its places of work in New York and Los Angeles, LL represents Lil Nas X, Timbaland, Lauv, producer Omer Fedi and different creators — and Kobay says many younger artists come to the desk already savvy about technique of diversification and passive earnings streams. “They get it,” he says of Gen Z performers, who usually prioritize socially acutely aware investing and bankable abilities over school levels. Some shoppers additionally prize actual property as an funding, however “that doesn’t imply you can purchase 10 Airbnbs earlier than you personal a main residence.”

Proudest Second: The present world tour by Lil Nas X is a “first of its type,” says Kobay. “He’s a pioneer. He has opened doorways that had historically been closed to African American and homosexual artists. Even when there was resistance, he [persevered] and has made this trade a way more welcoming place for all.”

David Bolno
Title associate, NKSFB
Michael Karlin
Founding associate, NKSFB
Matthew Segal
Larry Tyler
Companions, NKSFB
Harley Neuman
Founding associate of Neuman + Associates, A Division of NKSFB
Michael Oppenheim
Founding associate of NKSFBGO, A Division of NKSFB
David Weise
Founding associate of David Weise & Associates, A Division of NKSFB
Jaime Masuda
Beth Sabbagh
Rob Salzman
Companions of David Weise & Associates, A Division of NKSFB

The variety of NKSFB’s honorees displays mergers that expanded the agency’s attain. A Focus Monetary firm, NKSFB is dwelling to advisers for artists together with Beyoncé, Eminem, Steve Aoki, Scarlett Johansson, Ryan Murphy, Ellen DeGeneres, Coldplay, Frequent, deadmau5, Usher and The Weeknd. NKSFB additionally has guided main transactions like Bolno’s lead function within the $1 billion acquisition/merger between Ithaca Holdings and Hybe America, in addition to his help within the integration of Hybe Korea and Hybe America, and Karlin navigated and assisted in closing a nine-digit sale of a shopper’s enterprise, together with superior tax planning. As well as, says Salzman, “our agency’s companions targeted on exploring outside-the-box pandemic applications,” together with the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program.

Julie Boos
Proprietor/enterprise supervisor/chairman, FBMM
Duane Clark
Proprietor/enterprise supervisor/president, FBMM
Jamie Cheek
David Boyer
Carmen Romano
Homeowners/enterprise managers/vps, FBMM
Chris Hughes
Enterprise supervisor, FBMM

Artists are nonetheless weathering the most important shift in touring economics, together with provide chain points and price will increase associated to tools and manufacturing personnel, in addition to overcrowded, pandemic-driven tour planning. These components “have shoppers feeling the squeeze this yr,” Clark says. Nevertheless, NFTs and the metaverse have just lately supplied promising new alternatives. “I can’t say it has had a giant impact on our shoppers’ earnings at present,” says Clark, “however I can see how that day is coming.”

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “We don’t view any investments as uncommon, simply doubtlessly extra particular to the pursuits of every specific shopper,” says Clark. “So we collect info on the precise thought, together with measuring to see if it might match effectively, holistically, with the shopper’s present plan.”

Joseph Callaghan
Mark Carter
Bruce Kolbrenner
Lahteefah “Lah” Parramore
Thomas Smith
Simon Winters
Companions, Prager Metis

Citing Prager Metis’ presence as “one of many first accounting corporations within the NFT area,” Parramore says she and her colleagues present shoppers with the “thought management they should navigate that new type of earnings.” (The corporate opened a digital workplace on metaverse platform Decentraland in late 2021.) A Miami-based CPA whose Prager Metis shoppers embody indie labels and entertainers, Parramore joins her friends to assist artists with enterprise actions resembling, on the touring facet, “managing last-minute prices due to the post-COVID-19 atmosphere, whether or not it’s delivery of the staging or the manufacturing.”

Deedra Carroll
Director of touring, Tri Star Sports activities & Leisure Group
Bret Visitor
Enterprise supervisor, Tri Star Sports activities & Leisure Group

Carroll and Visitor, beforehand acknowledged, respectively, on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Energy Gamers and Nation Energy Gamers lists, advise chart-topping shoppers however hold their roster confidential. A 17-year veteran of Tri Star, Carroll has been the agency’s director of touring for 9 years, overseeing employees and shopper affairs from the corporate’s Los Angeles and Nashville places of work. Her function entails liaising with artist managers, reserving brokers, authorized advisers and promoters and creating tour budgets to make sure worthwhile runs. Since becoming a member of Tri Star in 2015, Visitor has superior from senior accountant to his present place, the place he advises shoppers from breakout artists to main tour headliners.

Adam Caswell
Director of enterprise administration, Fineman West

Since becoming a member of Fineman West in 2020, Caswell has helped the long-standing accounting agency leverage its experience in actual property, retail, hospitality, joint ventures, taxes and investments to lure a rising checklist of leisure shoppers. Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Maroon 5’s Sam Farrar, producer J.R. Rotem (Gwen Stefani, Jason Derulo, Rihanna) and singer-songwriters Josh Kelley and Kim Petras are just some who’ve turned to Caswell to create numerous earnings streams. “We’re constructing customized enterprise administration options from the bottom up,” says Caswell.

Recommendation to Purchasers: “Everybody on their group — enterprise supervisor, supervisor, legal professional, wealth supervisor and property legal professional — must be on the identical web page to verify they get essentially the most worth out of [a] deal and that their pursuits are protected.”

Lauren Cooper
Mark Kaplan
Sharon Sullivan
Errol Wander
Victor Wlodinguer
Companions, Citrin Cooperman
Maria del Pilar Lopez
Director, Citrin Cooperman

Prior to now yr, Citrin Cooperman has grown geographically, with new places of work in Chicago and Florida, in addition to an expanded presence in Southern California. It additionally bolstered its experience with the addition of music valuator Massarsky Consulting, “establishing an in-house music economics and valuation apply inside attain for our enterprise managers and their music shoppers who could also be all in favour of catalog gross sales,” says Lopez. Citrin Cooperman’s shoppers embody Jack Antonoff, The Strokes, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Pablo Diaz-Reixa (aka El Guincho), Father John Misty and Tenacious D. The return of touring and catalog gross sales have strengthened shoppers’ funds. “As enterprise managers,” says Lopez, “we’re concerned in monitoring and overseeing all earnings streams and prices on behalf of our shoppers. It’s our accountability to offer them with significant monetary knowledge and satisfactory enterprise buildings that permit them to make knowledgeable monetary selections.”

Jose Cruz
Enterprise supervisor, Aura Music

For Cruz, who oversees enterprise operations for Puerto Rican artist Ozuna’s label, Aura Music, planning for the long run is as vital as planning for the following single. The corporate’s pandemic-era give attention to knowledge evaluation lets it “react and reply with extra agility” to risky markets and in addition informs strategic selections concerning the rising worlds of NFTs and catalog gross sales. “The problem is to judge all of the facets of those choices and select the correct purchaser/associate,” he says. He describes NFTs as “one of many trendiest and latest income-generation streams throughout the previous yr. As for any new pattern, we extremely encourage our prospects to take the time to get acquainted with their markets of curiosity and perceive the dangers and professionals and cons of each enterprise determination they need to make.”

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “A startup garlic-based merchandise manufacturing firm within the U.S.”

Lester Dales
Director, Dales Evans

Serving to shoppers “restart their companies after COVID-19” has been a precedence for London-based Dales Evans, which handles the funds of Dua Lipa and Queen, amongst others. “Many excursions that had been postponed have rolled out together with a lot of new outings. These excursions are going through many new challenges regarding the constriction of the provision chain and price will increase,” he says.

Most Urgent Situation: “The present monetary local weather — each because it impacts the worth of touring and different actions with our shoppers’ companies — and defending their belongings in opposition to political and monetary volatility.”

Kella Farris
Stephanie Self
Catherine Moore
Companions, Farris Self & Moore

Though Nashville-based Farris Self & Moore retains rising, welcoming extra shoppers and staff over the previous 18 months, the corporate maintains “a boutique really feel,” based on Self. “FSM prides ourselves on our ‘future work,’ ” Self says. “Ensuring our shoppers are set for all times is a main objective.” As for the current, she provides, “Consumer earnings is again to pre-COVID-19 ranges, although bills have risen considerably. We’re seeing a scarcity of tour personnel availability — and the world wants extra buses.”

Influencing Consumer Revenue: “Catalog gross sales are nonetheless occurring and are life-changing for writers, though not on the quick tempo we noticed in 2020 and 2021,” says Self. “We’re ready to make use of the favorable tax therapy and time worth of cash to stabilize an earnings stream after a catalog sale versus the unstable earnings circulate of [performing rights organizations] and publishing mechanical/digital/streaming earnings. The [value] hole between proudly owning grasp [recording] rights and proudly owning the publishing rights remains to be very vital in favor of the grasp, and we’d wish to see that turn into extra equitable.”

Tina Fasbender
Founder/president, Fasbender Monetary Administration

Enterprise administration is greater than “dealing with taxes and paying payments,” says Fasbender. “I consider it extra as actuality remedy.” Guiding shoppers by way of the financial influence of COVID-19 and adjusting to “new normals” have been a very powerful duties for her agency. Fastidiously managing diminished money circulate and discovering different streams of earnings had been each important, and catalog gross sales have proved to be life preservers for a lot of. “Retaining [clients] calm, optimistic and hopeful, whereas ensuring they understood the necessity for curbed spending and considerate selections on cash and well being, was precedence one,” she says, emphasizing the need of efficient rapport-building and communication. “It’s about them having the arrogance that you’ll information them by way of the minefield of cash and their artwork,” she says.

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “Parking tons and deserted tons close to proposed new venue/stadium websites. ‘Artwork’ purchases that one way or the other don’t actually seem to be what most would possibly outline as artwork. I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and ‘uncommon’ is getting weirder and weirder.”

Colin Finkelstein
Founder/CEO, COFINK Enterprise Music Administration

COFINK “is a boutique enterprise administration firm” that gives “a excessive degree of private service,” says Finkelstein. “The continued progress of music grasp and publishing gross sales has made it important that we now have the talent set to have the ability to present monetary recommendation on valuations and a basic enterprise sense to those occasions as they current themselves.” Different elements influencing shopper earnings? “Artists are again touring, and Web3 presents new alternatives, new channels for music distribution — together with the monetization of latest social media platforms — and elevated synch and branding alternatives post-COVID-19 [lockdowns].”

Most Urgent Situation: “The proliferation of various income sources gives added threat to an artist to be sure that all earnings are maximized and all money is collected. This gives a particular problem to be sure that programs are in place to trace and monitor the huge array of income alternatives.”

W. Shane Glass
President, The Colony Group

As a result of a lot of its music shoppers function by way of S firms and restricted legal responsibility firms, The Colony Group was in a position to implement methods that considerably lowered their federal taxes in 2021 and 2022, says Glass. He additionally helped shoppers navigate the gross sales of catalogs and rights to create liquid belongings. On what’s most affecting the earnings of his shoppers, Glass says “the return of touring helps deliver again regular money circulate to many musicians. The music catalog gross sales have [also] helped create vital liquidity that adjustments the best way artists price range.”

Lesson From the Pandemic: It’s “an unlucky reminder to shoppers that they need to be paying themselves first by placing apart financial savings, investing and dealing towards constructing a internet value. Whereas my singer, songwriter, recording and touring artists earn vital sums of cash, in addition they have vital way of life prices to cowl.”

Reggie Gooden
Co-founder/managing associate, 360 Enterprise Administration

After working for different corporations, Gooden and associate Josh Martin opened 360 Enterprise Administration in August. Working with creatives resembling Grammy Award-winning producer HARV, songwriter Cory Henry and actors Bella Thorne and Frankie Shaw, Gooden says he and Martin “positively go all the best way for our shoppers, serving to them out in concierge methods” that embody branding administration and brokering, and even offering administration help when “shake-ups” left these shoppers in momentary want. “The panorama could be very difficult for a artistic who doesn’t actually have a grasp on enterprise and what the music enterprise entails,” says Gooden. “That is extra rewarding for me now to assist folks and advise them and ensure they’re self-empowered.”

Sean Granat
Associate, CohnReznick

Granat is proud that CohnReznick has turn into “an trade chief within the environmental, social and governance [ESG] area, introducing a spread of latest companies to assist personal firms and traders meet stakeholder wants by implementing complete ESG methods.” To strengthen these objectives, the agency launched its Gamechanger awards this yr, with leisure and hospitality shoppers among the many inaugural occasion’s winners. “My shoppers proceed to see the enterprise and societal worth of ESG-focused investments, which had been very worthwhile over the previous few years,” he provides. In the course of the pandemic, CohnReznick additionally helped shoppers acquire forgiveness for Paycheck Safety Program loans and obtain reduction by way of applications such because the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.

Most Urgent Situation: “Revenue streams, notably for touring musicians, dried up significantly throughout the pandemic, so I’m working with shoppers to assist them take advantage of even handed selections about their funds going ahead.”

Becky Harris
President, Huskins-Harris

For Harris, whose shoppers embody Kane Brown, Chris Younger and CeCe Winans, success means adapting to all the income sources obtainable within the quickly altering music trade. “All of my shoppers are increasing into different sources of income. Podcasts, videogaming, catalog gross sales [and] NFTs are all issues we’ve explored in 2022 for a wide range of shoppers,” Harris says. “Our trade has all the time been in a state of fixed change, however social media and digital platforms have clearly fast-tracked each a part of our enterprise, that means new earnings streams and methods to monetize them are coming our method at each flip — which, in flip, appears to make day by day a brand new studying expertise.”

Proudest Second: “Throughout an unprecedented — at the least since 2008 — financial downturn, all of my shoppers haven’t solely managed to extend their enterprise and monetary portfolios, in addition they proceed to provide again, contributing considerably to causes that personally matter a lot to them. And I’m proud that my agency performs a task in serving to them achieve this.”

Jordan L. Josephs
Director of enterprise administration and household workplace group, SingerLewak

With artists hitting the street to make up for misplaced time, SingerLewak has been serving to shoppers, who embody Grammy-winning producers and TikTok influencers, navigate sophisticated state and native taxation points, along with engaged on the “merger of a significant publishing firm” and the “acquisition of a powerhouse podcast firm.” Josephs factors to present financial uncertainty — and the truth that the majority artists can’t tour indefinitely perpetually — as a motive the agency is steering its shoppers towards “different alternatives to generate evergreen passive earnings.”

Most Urgent Situation: “Not figuring out what the way forward for a profession holds, strategic monetary planning and reporting has all the time been urgent in music and leisure. Now throw in a turbulent financial system heading for recession, risky markets, excessive inflation and worry. Our recommendation on wealth preservation and accumulation is extra vital than ever. Even more durable is working with youthful, newly minted shoppers strolling into this ambiance and serving to them plan.”

Nicholas Judd
Co-founder/CEO, leftbrain

Enterprise administration agency leftbrain has targeted on offering its shoppers with modern expertise “to enhance effectivity and transparency,” which supplies it an edge, based on Judd, who’s notably excited by RYLTY, a just lately launched leftbrain subsidiary designed to detect and repair errors in royalty stories. “Now we have discovered 1000’s of royalty errors and recovered thousands and thousands in catalog worth on behalf of our shoppers,” Judd says. “With the rising pattern round catalog acquisitions and frequent headlines surrounding stolen [and unclaimed] royalties, we really feel [RYLTY] will likely be a real game-changer not only for our shoppers, however the trade as an entire.”

Most Urgent Situation: “Discovering a secure, efficient strategy to incorporate expertise as a method to enhance effectivity and transparency is by far essentially the most urgent situation that corporations are going through — whether or not they need to admit it or not.”

Michael Kaplan
Managing associate, Miller Kaplan
Michael Kane
Associate, Miller Kaplan

Kaplan and Kane deal with a number of the largest names in music, together with Britney Spears and the Michael Jackson property, they usually advise their shoppers “to remain in it for the lengthy sport and don’t sacrifice your catalog due to a short-term drawback,” Kane says. That little bit of knowledge proved notably pertinent the final two years. “Many consumers had been pressured to reinvent their enterprise mannequin throughout the COVID disaster,” says Kaplan. “Predictable income streams resembling touring, merchandise and meet-and-greets had been clearly not obtainable.”

Most Urgent Situation: “We’re experiencing a glut of FOMO — worry of lacking out — particularly associated to unorthodox investments and an extreme willingness to soak up threat within the crypto, meme inventory and NFT areas,” says Kaplan. “Just lately, it’s extra vital than ever to warning your shoppers to be frugal and risk-averse after they see unregulated commodities improve 10,000% nearly in a single day.”

Matt Klarberg
Managing director, Mai Capital

“It’s an awesome feeling when all of your shoppers take heed to your strategic monetary planning,” says Klarberg, citing acts resembling Kaskade, Tierra Whack, R&B artist Quincy and artist-DJ Alec Monopoly. Klarberg calls touring “the monetary centerpiece” for a lot of of his shoppers and has targeted on related prices from manufacturing to insurance coverage, all of which have elevated since stay music’s return. “It’s vital to have a plan in place and make changes alongside the best way,” he says, suggesting month-to-month or weekly monetary check-ins. “Navigating the previous two years and coming again stronger and smarter than earlier than has actually amplified the significance of enterprise managers in sports activities and leisure.”

Josh Klein
Managing associate, TKG Enterprise Administration

Because it took on new shoppers, TKG doubled in dimension final yr, the agency stories, whereas specializing in catalog group and royalty assortment, amongst different companies. Serving to handle budgets for A-list shoppers like The Chainsmokers, Huge Sean, Logic, Normani, Kelly Rowland and others, Klein says the rise of inflation during the last 12 months has meant exercising as a lot endurance as potential, particularly when investing in touring, actual property and manufacturing. “We’re telling our shoppers to save lots of your cash so you may benefit from alternatives after they current themselves because the markets right,” he says.

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “I feel for those who ask anybody about NFTs, most will query a shopper’s spending a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} on a jpeg. Whereas it’s positively uncommon, I feel NFTs are the long run and we have to get educated on blockchain and the way they are going to be a part of on a regular basis commerce and society.”

Kristin Lee
Founder/managing director, KLBM

The artists, athletes and actors that Lee advises have weathered the upheaval of the previous three years by following Lee’s largest piece of recommendation: “Plan for the worst and hope for one of the best.” That mantra has ready them financially to sometimes give attention to fascinating investments, she says. “We’re taking part in by way of a interval of huge disruption that presents us each chaos and alternative,” Lee says. “We’ve constructed new enterprise fashions and refined outdated ones to make sure our shoppers could be targeted on one factor — making nice artwork.”

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “I did just lately have a shopper really feel they had been turning into too recognizable of their yellow sports activities automotive — so they’d it painted vibrant purple. They stated it was an funding of their safety.”

David Levin
Managing director, DL Enterprise Administration, a division of Adeptus Companions

Levin merged his agency with Adeptus Companions in 2019 however maintained an intimate enterprise mannequin. “The boutique nature of our apply has allowed us to give attention to all the small print,” he says, citing John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Hailey Bieber and Think about Dragons amongst his shoppers. Think about Dragons embarking on its Mercury world tour and Legend opening a Las Vegas residency highlighted “a significant increase to recapture that vital income stream” from stay performances, Levin says. The important thing, he says, is to “save not just for the proverbial wet day but when or when the music stops.”

Matt Lichtenberg
Associate, Stage 4 Enterprise Administration

“Navigating and implementing the post-COVID adjustments in tax laws have been an unbelievable hurdle and problem for us and, I’d think about, all enterprise managers,” Lichtenberg says. “The period of time and sources we’ve needed to decide to implement this has been really unprecedented.” Lichtenberg and his colleagues have additionally labored with NFTs, though “the jury remains to be out on how viable they’re.”

Most Urgent Situation: “With quickly rising rates of interest and inflation uncontrolled, the monetary markets are at finest erratic. Our job as gatekeepers is to assist our shoppers navigate and information them by way of these unsure instances.”

Mike Merriman
Associate/president, Parr3
Bryan Gott
Director of enterprise administration, Parr3

Parr3 works to make sure its leisure clientele — which incorporates Louis Bell, Clairo, LVRN Data, 6LACK, Alison Wonderland and Kehlani — stays financially safe in each the brief and long run. “Our recommendation to shoppers now’s successfully the identical because it has all the time been,” says Gott, who was promoted to director of enterprise administration on the agency earlier this yr. “First construct a basis for the brief time period, then flip your sights on the long run. Set cash apart now to ‘pay’ your 60-year-old self sufficient to cowl the approach to life you need them to stay. Do it whereas your earnings helps it and lock that wealth away in a ‘vault’ the place it’s held for the long run in numerous and modest investments.” That has been potential as many purchasers have “scored massive wins in different high-risk areas like early-stage investing and the blockchain,” says Gott, and proceed to profit from royalty income and the return of the touring trade.

Most Urgent Situation: “We’re aggressively pushing for extra transparency and accuracy in the best way royalties are accounted to artists, producers and songwriters,” says Merriman. “The expertise is prepared, however the present requirements come from an historic period, and labels and publishers aren’t allocating sources to do that higher. Within the meantime, we go ‘royalty searching’ each quarter and hold discovering more cash for our shoppers.”

Enrique Narciso
President, ERN Advisors

“The sale of their catalogs has turn into one of the vital selections a prime artist should make,” says Narciso, who works with Shakira, Maluma and Latin music chief WK Leisure and WK Data. Over the previous 18 months, he has suggested shoppers on the multimillion-dollar transactions, offering them with “not solely the correct valuation evaluation but in addition an funding technique that may present the identical or higher money circulate returns into the long run.” As well as, some artists have gotten extra concerned in entrepreneurial actions. This shift towards enterprise improvement, he says, requires talent units extra in tune with funding banking.

Glenn Nordlinger
Enterprise supervisor, The Nordlinger Group

As enterprise supervisor for the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Marc Rebillet, The Revivalists and Grace Potter, Nordlinger has gotten to know the music enterprise from completely different style views. As stay performances resume, he says, “Now we have an especially crowded area of artists on tour leading to brief provides of every part: crew, buses, vans, drivers, audio, video, lighting, staging, backline gear, et cetera. This has pushed up tour prices considerably. Add to that elevated gasoline costs, inflation and fewer ticket gross sales as a result of aggressive panorama. By no means has the function of enterprise administration been extra vital in budgeting and monitoring tour prices than this fall.”

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “One artist made an funding in a small mom-and-pop popcorn firm which will get devoured up by a Fortune 500 firm. A number of puns meant.”

Kerry O’Neil
Alvin Hagaman Jr.
Legina Chaudoin
Cheryl Harris
Lillian Williams
Companions, O’Neil Hagaman

As shoppers of Nashville-based O’Neil Hagaman return to the street, the pandemic remains to be affecting touring. Shortages prevail, requiring “a major quantity of extra planning and coordination to efficiently rent and deploy the distributors and personnel vital for excellent stay efficiency,” says O’Neil, and ongoing provide chain challenges, market saturation and inflation “require the artist advisory group to work nearer than ever earlier than to realize the artist’s objectives.” On a optimistic word, O’Neil says that regardless of rising rates of interest, “the urge for food for buying mental properties from an array of traders has not slowed down.”

Most Urgent Situation: “Given rising prices on a large number of fronts, essentially the most urgent concern for our touring artists is the power of the followers to afford going to live shows. Our artists have all the time been delicate to this situation — growing prices have made this objective way more difficult.”

Tony Peyrot
Managing associate, Dunn Pariser & Peyrot
Mark Pariser
Associate, Dunn Pariser & Peyrot

Throughout a interval of consolidation within the enterprise administration area, Dunn Pariser & Peyrot has steadfastly remained unbiased. “In the course of the pandemic … we’ve been in a position to develop by sustaining a give attention to servicing our shoppers and in addition serving to them develop,” stated Peyrot, noting the agency’s 25% progress in staffing over the previous 18 months. DP&P has steered that shoppers contemplate transferring out of environmentally unpredictable, high-tax California into extra tax-friendly music cities resembling Nashville or Miami, whereas additionally encouraging them to be cautious about investing in rising markets resembling NFTs. “We will’t simply say ‘no.’ Now we have to go down the rabbit gap a bit and faucet into their pleasure about it and be lively listeners,” he says.

Most Urgent Situation: “Having an excellent employees that’s educated and proactive,” says Peyrot. “One of many largest issues going through all enterprise managers is that there’s nonetheless excessive demand for certified people and a comparatively brief provide.”

Robert Polay
Founding associate, Polay + Swann

In the course of the previous two years, Polay + Swann has continued “to tighten up our cloud-based ecosystem so as to improve accuracy, effectivity and to create an atmosphere for our distant pressure to prosper,” says Polay, whose Atlanta-based agency works with shoppers resembling Killer Mike, Manchester Orchestra, Keith Sweat, Blxst and others. “The suspension of touring with the next inflation of touring prices related to the return of touring has introduced knowledge and maturity to our shopper’s monetary actions,” says Polay, who provides that the artists he works with “have turn into wiser with respect to their funds post-pandemic.”

Most Urgent Situation: “Workers improvement and retention of expertise that actually cares about their shoppers’ monetary well-being.”

Michelle Richburg
President/CEO, Richburg Enterprises

Richburg is among the many co-authors of the motivational guide Nonetheless I Thrive!: 24 Classes on Methods to Pivot & Evolve Throughout an Sudden Disaster, printed in August 2021. Her chapter focuses on the significance of monetary freedom, and he or she has gained recognition in media retailers starting from Harvard Enterprise Evaluation to Black Enterprise. Amongst Richburg’s shoppers are the Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Household Basis Social Justice Fund, and he or she is a college member on the WMG International DEI Institute, which the corporate describes as “a hub of innovation, studying and motion, driving impactful change at WMG and past.” Her shoppers additionally embody Mary J. Blige’s new competition, Energy of a Girl; RCA president Mark Pitts; A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie; and several other different artists, labels, influencers and social justice organizations.

Murray Richman
Nathan Richman
Companions, Richman Enterprise Administration

Because the prospect of huge paydays from NFTs, cryptocurrency and catalog gross sales more and more entice shoppers, Richman Enterprise Administration ensures in addition they contemplate the vitally vital “budgeting, tax planning and long-term wealth administration” ramifications, says Nathan Richman, who has labored alongside his father, Murray, for greater than a decade. Amid rising inflation and a saturated live-music sector, RBM applied a extra interactive tour budgeting and reporting utility to assist shoppers examine profitability in actual time. The corporate additionally doubled down on correct registration and assortment protocols for earnings monitoring, as artists transfer towards more and more diversified content material possession.

Most Urgent Situation: “Inflation and rising prices and a slowing financial system is a really actual pressure,” says Nathan Richman. “Stay-music ticket gross sales are slowing, and because the market continues to get flooded with artists seeking to tour after the pandemic, it’s going to be a significant headwind that all of us face.”

Phil Sarna
Founder/senior managing director, PS Enterprise Administration
Amy Hertz
Senior supervisor, PS Enterprise Administration
Juan Cumbe
Supervisor, PS Enterprise Administration

The enterprise alternatives for music and different artistic artists have grown extra advanced and far-reaching since Sarna based PS Enterprise Administration in 2002. Now with places of work in New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Nashville, the agency has shepherded shoppers by way of the pandemic and, in lots of circumstances, helped them reprioritize their monetary objectives. “The worth our shoppers deliver to the world exterior of music and movie/TV has grown exponentially over the previous 5 to 10 years,” Sarna says.

Most Urgent Situation: “Every thing is simply extra advanced than it has ever been,” says Sarna. “Offers are extra far-reaching. [What clients create] is valued greater than ever earlier than.”

John Shaheen
Associate, Enterprise Wealth & Tax Administration

Shaheen’s agency has been targeted on “a wide range of actions leading to money influx for shoppers,” together with tax credit score alternatives and pandemic-related help, from the Paycheck Safety Program to the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant. “I’m very happy with our inner group of pros who differ in age, ethnicity, background and expertise; we’re happy with our collective range and synergy,” says Shaheen, whose agency works with Burna Boy, Kenny Beats, Rico Nasty, Breland and Matt Maeson, amongst others. “I’m additionally the co-director of a 501c3 group that connects music trade professionals with sponsoring a one-of-a-kind area journey for college students in underserved college districts inside higher Los Angeles.”

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “An ayahuasca retreat heart.”

Alex Smith
Associate-in-charge of enterprise administration, Mann Gelon Glodney Gumerove Yee
Justin Sroka
Associate, Mann Gelon Glodney Gumerove Yee

“We’ve had the chance to supervise a few vital legacy catalog gross sales,” says Smith, and though shopper confidentiality prevents him from figuring out the events concerned, he says the offers allowed “these shoppers to diversify their steadiness sheets and save substantial taxes in securing capital good points therapy on these belongings.” The agency’s most urgent concern? “Navigating frequent adjustments to federal and native tax regulation in a method that maximizes our shoppers’ internet earnings,” says Smith. “We’re additionally very targeted on cybersecurity resulting from elevated focusing on of high-profile and high-net-worth people.”

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “One just lately bought an over 60 million-year-old Triceratops cranium,” Smith says.

Charles Sussman
President, Sussman & Associates

“With a rise in demand for catalog acquisitions over the previous few years, our agency makes a speciality of evaluations and due diligence to barter one of the best supply for our shoppers,” says Sussman. The agency’s shopper roster contains Miley Cyrus, Bon Jovi, Bette Midler, Will Jennings, Megadeth, Steve Winwood and the property of Olivia Newton-John. “One of many largest [industry] developments is escalation within the mechanical and streaming charges, which can influence the long-term worth of catalogs,” Sussman says. “The catalog acquisition multiples have additionally elevated considerably,” he provides, itemizing inflation and its influence on touring prices as one other urgent situation affecting artists.

José Juan Torres
Proprietor/managing member, Torres

“The final two-and-a-half years, we now have seen how inequality in all social and financial spheres has dramatically impacted the habits of human beings,” says Torres, who advises Dangerous Bunny, Residente, Visitante, iLe, Rafa Pabon, Lunay, Villano Antillano and La Buena Fortuna, amongst others. “One of many blessings of our shoppers is that they’ve nice platforms to lift their voices. So we now have offered particular consideration to planning their philanthropy and their non-for-profit entities. We predict this helps to spotlight their social dedication and the way they strongly contribute not solely to the world of the humanities however in every part that surrounds and impacts them.”

Most Urgent Situation: “Retaining observe of all content material monetization. Immediately, there are too many income streams/channels and with the ability to preserve visibility throughout all of them is extraordinarily difficult. It requires quite a lot of effort, time and expertise.”

Sally Velazquez
President/enterprise supervisor, Empower Enterprise Administration

At Empower, which incorporates 21 Savage, iann dior, jxdn and Tinashe on its shopper roster, Velazquez is targeted on serving to her shoppers pivot and properly navigate investments in alternatives together with NFTs and “receiving possession in manufacturers they consider in,” she says. Her key concern now? “On the lookout for the correct place to safeguard our shoppers’ funds. With inflation growing, the inventory market turbulence and rates of interest and actual property skyrocketing, we now are searching for different areas, resembling personal fairness, to speculate.”

Most Uncommon Consumer Funding: “One in every of my shoppers [talked] with me about shopping for property on the moon, and I virtually had a coronary heart assault earlier than I noticed the joke.”

Rit Venerus
Senior managing director, Cal Monetary Group

Venerus has a front-row seat to the present challenges going through touring artists because the adviser to shoppers together with the Dave Matthews Band, Lifeless & Firm, John Mayer, The Lumineers, Bon Iver and Jack White. “Whereas touring has resumed, it has continued to be very difficult with inflation, shortages of touring sources and nonetheless coping with COVID cancellations,” he says. “It has been a really busy yr for us guiding our shoppers by way of this atmosphere to allow them to proceed to make knowledgeable selections.”

Most Urgent Situation: “There’s a nice reset occurring in markets because the funding world reacts to inflation after years of the federal government printing an excessive amount of cash. It’s going to take a minute for issues to shake out, and our job is to assist information our shoppers by way of and never overreact.”

Kris Wiatr
President, Wiatr & Associates

Rising prices, particularly surrounding touring, “is the most important concern to my shoppers at this level,” says Wiatr, whose roster contains Chris Stapleton, Mick Fleetwood and Parker McCollum. “Bus prices, trucking prices … have risen considerably since earlier than COVID. Sound and video tools has risen as effectively. Add the rising gasoline prices and it’s considerably costlier to tour in 2022 than it has ever been.” Due to this, Wiatr says, “budgeting is extraordinarily vital.” Wiatr & Associates “raised over $10 million of COVID [relief] funding for our shoppers,” he provides.

Most Urgent Situation: “Discovering caring and educated staffing. Now we have superb, caring and compassionate staff that actually look after the artists they work with — and are in search of extra.”

Dwight Wiles
Associate/president, Wiles + Taylor
Robert Taylor
Associate/vp, Wiles + Taylor
Kevin Dalton
Steve Eggart
Enterprise supervisor, Wiles + Taylor

In August, the Academy of Nation Music introduced Dwight Wiles with the ACM Lifting Lives Award for his service to the group’s philanthropic division. “Wiles’ monetary management enabled ACM Lifting Lives to provide generously to the nation music group by way of the years,” the ACM acknowledged in its announcement of the consideration. The Nashville agency has guided its shoppers by way of the present challenges of tour budgeting amid a shortage of buses, vans, manufacturing tools and street crews, searching for to extend income past ticket gross sales with merchandise, VIP packages, livestreams and extra.

Giving Again: Wiles + Taylor stories a brand new focus by its shoppers on charitable initiatives, from donor-advised funds to native catastrophe reduction, pushed by the notice within the pandemic of how shortly monetary circumstances can change.

Colin Younger
Founder, C.C. Younger

“Touring has returned with vengeance,” says Younger. “We anticipated its return and constructed the touring division, which now extends to 25 employees.” For multinational excursions, minimizing tax liabilities is vital. That requires planning “early within the tour cycle and technical excellence within the understanding of the double tax treaties all over the world,” says Younger, whose London-based agency gives monetary companies for a global roster of over 300 shoppers. In November 2020, Younger gave proof at a U.Okay. Parliament inquiry into the economics of music streaming the place he argued for a extra equitable royalty cut up between artists and labels. For his shoppers now, “we undertake essentially the most subtle streaming audits, making use of a skeptical evaluation of items and royalty charges,” he says. “The emphasis is on mechanical and public efficiency. How does Harry Fox/MLC mechanicals evaluate to ASCAP/BMI efficiency? We present our shoppers the cash.”

Invoice Zysblat
Co-founder/managing associate, RZO
Tom Cyrana
John Gula
Lila Candy
Companions/managing administrators, RZO

With live performance excursions managing ongoing well being dangers and artists wanting to carry out stay as soon as extra, “every part is amazingly good — from a fan perspective,” says RZO co-founder/managing associate Zysblat. However for artists? “It’s COVID, COVID, COVID,” he says.

Zysblat brings practically 5 many years of perspective to discussions of touring. He and his late enterprise associate Joe Rascoff started advising The Rolling Stones in 1975, they usually shaped RZO in 1988. The agency stands out amongst its friends within the enterprise administration area not just for its focus solely on artists, but in addition the stature of these names it really works with.

RZO nonetheless counts the Stones amongst its shoppers (though AEG manages the funds of the band’s excursions) and in addition advises Girl Gaga, U2, Steely Dan, David Byrne, Luis Miguel, Shania Twain, Sting, Yoko Ono and the estates of John Lennon and David Bowie, amongst others. RZO’s companions, every with a particular space of experience, embody Cyrana (royalty compliance), Gula (taxes) and Candy (enterprise administration).

“You may’t insure a present for COVID-19 — which to the typical fan means nothing,” says Zysblat. However for an artist, the lack of a number of reveals can flip the web results of a whole tour “right into a loss from a revenue.” In contrast with different sicknesses, he says, “COVID-19 is inflicting widespread cancellations over longer durations of time.”

Funds apart, Zysblat says the specter of the coronavirus has considerably modified the character of touring for artists. “You tour in a bubble,” he says. “Individuals don’t need to give their bandmates or their crew COVID-19. In order that they’re not having the VIP rooms; they’re not having their associates backstage. They’re not going out to dinner in cities they used to like to wander in.

“Each tour is one sneeze away from a cancellation,” he says. “So it has been loopy.”

This previous yr, RZO has additionally targeted on one other space that has more and more demanded the eye of enterprise managers: non-fungible tokens, which Zysblat describes extra merely as limited-edition paintings.

RZO suggested the Bowie property on the September launch of “Bowie on the Blockchain,” a sale of NFTs created by a number of main artists and benefiting CARE, the humanitarian nonprofit for which Bowie’s widow, Iman, serves as international advocate. The enterprise is in keeping with Bowie’s personal pioneering enthusiasm for on-line artwork throughout his lifetime.

“David was organising on-line galleries for younger artists who couldn’t afford to again when net area was costly,” says Zysblat. Now amid the rise of NFTs, he provides, “in fact, David would have supported younger artists.”

Contributors: Cathy Applefeld Olson, Megan Armstrong, Nefertiti Austin, Steve Baltin, Dean Budnick, Anna Chan, Jonathan Cohen, Mariel Concepcion, Stephen Daw, Liz Dilts Marshall, Thom Duffy, Chris Eggertsen, Gary Graff, Clayton Gutzmore, Raquelle Harris, Lyndsey Havens, Gil Kaufman, Steve Knopper, Carl Lamarre, Cydney Lee, Elias Leight, Joe Lynch, Geoff Mayfield, Taylor Mims, Gail Mitchell, Melinda Newman, Jessica Nicholson, Ronda Racha Penrice, Glenn Peoples, Kristin Robinson, Crystal Shepeard, Richard Smirke, Jewel Wicker, Deborah Wilker

Methodology: Billboard energy lists are chosen by Billboard editors. Nominations for every energy checklist open not lower than 120 days upfront of publication. (For a contact for our editorial calendar itemizing publication dates, please e-mail [email protected].) The web nomination hyperlink is shipped to press representatives and/or honorees of firms beforehand featured on any Billboard energy checklist, in addition to those that ship a request earlier than the nomination interval to [email protected]. Nominations shut and lists are locked not lower than 90 days earlier than publication. Billboard’s High Enterprise Managers for 2022 had been chosen by editors based mostly on elements together with, however not restricted to, nominations by friends, colleagues and superiors. Along with nominations, editors weigh the success of every government’s affiliated artists as measured by chart, gross sales and streaming efficiency.

This story initially appeared within the Nov. 5, 2022, situation of Billboard.