As part of our Horizon Future Leaders series of interviews, we are connecting with the music industry’s next generation of leaders to gather candid advice and insights into their career journeys.
Horizon is CMU’s weekly newsletter that brings you a hand-picked selection of early to mid stage career opportunities from across the music industry, paired with insights and advice. Whether you’re looking for your first job in music or you’re ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster. Horizon is focused on highlighting the best and most exciting roles we’ve seen and is made for people who are building their careers with ambition.
Getting started and progressing your career in the music industry can often feel overwhelming. Despite the wide range of positions and opportunities available, early-career professionals often face a daunting array of challenges. From the frustrating cycle of needing experience to be able to get the roles that help you build experience, to often intense competition from like-minded peers, the barriers in music can sometimes seem higher than in many other fields.
At CMU we spend a lot of time trying to explain and demystify the music business, and our Horizon newsletter is dedicated to helping the next generation of music leaders build and progress their careers. Our new series of Q&A interviews, Horizon Future Leaders, talks to rising professionals from across the industry: to hear firsthand how they started out and what they have learnt along the way, sharing practical tips and advice for anyone looking to build and own their future in the music business.
This week, we caught up with Ben Magee, founder and owner of New Champion Management.
Ben’s career journey began as a music journalist in Belfast, where he earned a reputation for candid, no-nonsense reviews and active industry involvement. After managing a thirteen country world tour, he founded New Champion Management, where he now manages five artists and curates radio shows.
Ben underscores the importance of diving into every opportunity and learning by doing, while also emphasising the value of mentorship in shaping his career. His key advice for newcomers: embrace every opportunity, build genuine connections, and never underestimate the impact of learning from those who’ve been through it.
Read the full Q&A with Ben below 👇
What’s your current role in the music industry?
I am the founder and owner of New Champion Management, an artist management and services company that is based in Belfast, in the North of Ireland. I also serve as a creative consultant and sit on the music board for UNSECO, advising Belfast City Council. In my limited spare time, I’m also a music journalist and an avid vinyl enthusiast.
What does your general day to day look like?
We’re currently based in Belfast, which is the beating heart of the Irish scene and a place releasing and pushing out some really exciting music right now. It feels like there’s a different event, pop-up or artist making waves every day of the week recently, and it’s really important for me that NCM is as involved in the city’s culture as possible.
A typical day starts with heading into our HQ in the Oh Yeah Music Centre in the heart of the city. This is a dedicated space for everything music and arts related in Belfast.
Depending on the day, we are either handling the needful admin of our dedicated artist roster, liaising with our artist teams around the globe on projects we’re working on, working with the UNESCO City Of Music board, getting release campaigns ready for later in the year, or working on new ideas, activations and showcases for our roster.
We’ve also taken on a new assistant, which has freed up more time for me to handle the wider business strategy of the company
Whilst no two days are ever technically the same, I do pride our business on having a reliability that benefits our artists in whatever area of their career that needs them most. They know when and how to find us at all times, which builds a cadence of trust, accountability and efficiency between the company and the client.
What steps did you take early in your career to gain experience and build skills to get you where you are now?
My first real foray into the industry was as a music journalist, specifically a photographer and live gig reviewer. This forced me to be present and active around what was the beginnings of what has become a bustling live sector in Belfast over the last few years. I gained a bit of a reputation for having an opinion about what I liked and didn’t, and for talking loudly about it until someone listened.
Clearly, someone was. After a few years, I was lucky to be taken under the wing of a few patient and kind mentors – Lyndon Stephens, Joanne Wright, Liam Craig, Declan Legge, Charlene Hegarty, Mark Gordon, Paul Bonham – who helped me refine my skills, professionalise myself and develop a laser focus on what it was I actually wanted to do.
I would love to say there’s a specific book, or life lesson, or tutorial that helped me gain insight or develop a certain skill that’s helped my career get to this point. But in all honesty, the best experience I’ve had to date has been purely from getting stuck in and getting my hands dirty.
And I was lucky to be guided by people in the industry who empowered that curiosity and pushed me through my mistakes. Best piece of advice I ever got? Be kind, do good, ask questions, clean up after yourself. Still serves me to this day.
What opportunities did you explore early on that were particularly valuable?
My first real job in management was tour managing and handling logistics for a thirteen country world tour. Whilst TM’ing is a different job all on its own, doing this job opened me up to all the auxiliary attitudes and skills needed to be a successful executive in the music industry.
Budgeting, legal comprehension, people skills, travel logistics, live production, PR and marketing, digital branding, and so on and so forth. For those early in their career – and later in their career as well – the scariest opportunities are often the chance for you to learn and develop the most.
Has the opportunity landscape changed since then?
Certainly, but neither for better or worse in my opinion. The music industry is REactive, not PROactive, which is both a strength and a weakness. In my opinion, opportunities have always been based on what you put into the industry and what you put into yourself. The fact that you are contending with an evolving digital landscape does little to change that universal truth.
Are there any specific internships, projects, or initiatives that you would recommend to newcomers looking to pursue a similar role?
Belfast City Council has launched a new music internship programme to support the city’s music industry. The Music Matters programme will provide £5000 for seven local businesses towards the costs of employing an intern for a six-month period.
It will be really fascinating to see what sort of companies and individuals are able to take full advantage of this new programme, and what that means for the new class of industry officials coming into the city
AVA Festival is also always looking for volunteers and interns to work on their projects and live events around the globe. Live music is still, in my opinion, the ideal place to cut your teeth in the music industry because of the soft and hard skills you are forced to develop.
From problem-solving to relationship management and everything in between, what you learn form working at festivals and gigs can take you far in your career.
What advice do you have for building and leveraging a professional network in the music industry?
Build a network for the right reasons. If the first thought in your head is “What can this person do for me?”, then you’re in this for all the wrong reasons. Be a human first and a business second.
How has the evolving digital landscape impacted your role, and where do you focus to stay ahead?
Ethics of evolving technologies aside – which are a far bigger personal worry for me, rather than throwing a wobbly over AI artists – I prefer to view new technologies as a tool.
The music industry is a backbreaking place of work, an industry where passion becomes the fuel when discipline can’t do the job. So if there is a new way of doing things that makes things easier for managers, artists and their teams – why not give it a go?
What trends or changes do you see on the horizon for the music industry, and how can early career professionals prepare for them?
The disruption in the middle class of festivals across the UK, USA and Europe is a concerning statistic. Having nowhere for the B through Z listers in the live world to perform on a festival level is not healthy, no matter how you slice it. I welcome news that a ticket levy will hopefully be introduced to support grassroots venues and ensure that there’s a backbone for new talent to develop in the meantime
I’ve also been fascinated on the about-face of editorials and “long form” (read: music videos) over the past eighteen months. As we hurtle headfirst into a world where influencers and playlist gatekeepers become less important, and humouring the robot becomes more valuable, how will artists and the industry adapt? Time to get creative!
What’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you at the start of your career?
Get a therapist.