Jason Schroeder

Jason Schroeder is the Events & Venues Manager at the Otago Uni Students Association (Ori/Re-Ori/Starters Bar/Union Hall), Festival Director of the Dunedin & Auckland Craft Beer & Food Festivals, Director of  Get Gold which manages bookings for NZ’s largest club night ‘Mono’ in Christchurch as well as bookings for other student events across the country, & Co-Director of Common People Entertainment.

Jason has a strong history working in student events as well as booking tours & festivals across the country. He has also managed artists such as Summer Thieves & Ha the Unclear. Jason can mentor on booking tours, putting together a show and a budget, booking festival & support act shows and basically anything to do with concerts & events.

Chris Close

Chris is a talented drummer, tour promoter, and artist manager based in Ōtautahi who has developed a reputation for his exceptional ability to nurture and elevate fellow musicians. Initially starting out playing in local Christchurch bands, Chris quickly took on the dreaded admin roles of organising gigs andreleases for his bands. What started as a side-hustle has now turned into a considerable career.

As well as running his label Winegum Records alongside his wife Sarena (Mousey), Chris now provides management and tour booking services to other local artists such as Pickle Darling and Pretty Stooked, among others.

Chris is a passionate advocate for the Ōtautahi music scene, his unwavering work ethic and dedication to the Ōtautahi music scene make him a respected advocate and invaluable asset to the music industry and the artists he works with.

Chris can mentor on: Management / Touring / Branding / Record Labels / Publishing / Publicity / A&R / Production /Strategy / Merchandise / Radio / Digital / Other....

Joel Tashkoff

Joel is an entertainment lawyer at NZ’s leading entertainment law firm Dominion Law. His specialty lies in the music industry (with some modelling industry experience thrown in the mix), and his practice includes a strong focus on contractual issues surrounding music rights, publishing, licensing, producer deals, management agreements, and recording contracts. Joel’s clients include platinum selling artists and Grammy winners actively working abroad, local youngsters just starting out, and everything in between. Whether you’re a manager, artist, band, label, engineer or producer, Joel’s aim is to empower you to make the most informed decisions you can for your career through advice that is thorough, yet easy to understand and relatable.

When not advising clients, Joel (under the name ‘choicevaughan’) is an award-winning, self-managed artist/music producer and composer. Joel’s self-released albums boast millions of streams, and his recent work in both composing the score for the TVNZ series “The Panthers” and producing its associated soundtrack each culminated in multiple award nominations. Joel’s unique combination of experiences gives him a ground-level understanding and appreciation of the issues faced by artists, managers, and producers in today’s ever-changing music landscape.

Make sure to indicate whether you’d like your session to focus on general legal advice in Joel’s capacity as a lawyer, or if you’d rather Joel wear his producer/artist/composer hat for the session instead.

*Please note the below

• Mentoring sessions are 30 mins only

• The legal mentoring sessions are for the purposes of providing general guidance on legal issues applicable to the music industry.

• MMF members cannot ask the lawyer to look over and make comments or mark ups on contracts during the session, but are encouraged to separately engage the services of a legal professional prior to proceeding with any specific legal matters.

Claudia Gunn

Claudia Gunn is a media allrounder, as a songwriter and performer herself across dance music (Substax), indie folk (Humming Birde) and children’s genres (Claudia Robin Gunn), and a professional background in sponsorship, television promos and video production.

She now specialises in assisting artists making music for kids and families with their release plans, artist admin and overall media approach. A specialised genre but one with a huge potential audience worldwide and the most endearing and enthusiastic listeners!

Having navigated the past few years on a deep learning curve as a self managed artist, Claudia highly values community building and knowledge sharing as a way for independent artists to empower themselves and share the journey. She aspires to help artists raise the profile of their music and help their incredible work reach the listeners they serve.

Mikee Carpinter

Mikee Carpinter is a musician, director and producer who has played an instrumental role in bringing some of New Zealand’s finest music-based visual content to life.

Mikee brings a passion for the New Zealand music industry with his 20+ years of experience. Much of that time has spent working on his own musical projects, while also managing acts including Alae, Georgia Lines, Hooks and Alex James.

Mikee specialises in guiding new acts into the industry and helping them lay out releases plans and goal setting.

This includes applying for funding, pitching to radio, building a local/international team, content creation and release strategies.

Mikee’s specialties are: MANAGEMENT, RADIO, RELEASE STRATEGIES, CONTENT CREATION, FUNDING

Manu Taylor

Manu has worked in the New Zealand music and media industries for well over 30 years.

After starting out in music retail, merchandising and indie record label ownership, in the 80s/early 90s he progressed into retail and promotions management with major labels WEA and Polygram Records.

After finishing up at Polygram in 1997, he was invited to join hip-hop/RnB radio station Mai FM as their Programme Director; at Mai FM between 1997 and 2008. Manu shifted roles to become Station Manager of Auckland’s 95bFM, finishing up at 95bFM early 2015.

He then moved into artist management, music production and music distribution. Currently managing Lontalius, Race Banyon, Dera Meelan, Church & AP, deadforest, Kedu Carlo, Maxwell Young, Kamahumble, Stupid Rich Kid, Tom Verberne, Disciple Pati and PollyHill.

Manu can mentor on Radio, Music Programming, Digital Media, Strategy and Getting your music out

Yee Yang ‘Square’ Lee 李羽阳

Square has arts/artist management, creative producing, mentoring & development, technical, governance, research and commercial skills and experience gained from roles in diverse sectors including performing/multi-disciplinary arts, creative technology, audience development, festivals, intellectual property and philanthropy.

An experienced live touring and performing arts producer, Square has toured artists to festivals and theatres across Asia, UK, USA, Germany, Canada, Australia and Aotearoa NZ.  Artists Square has worked with include: Modern Māori Quartet, Troy Kingi, Tofiga Fepulea’i, Mazbou Q, Arjuna Oakes, James Roque, Barnie Duncan, EDY, Rutene Spooner and RESHMA among others. He is a founding member of Where The Asians At‽ (Aotearoa), ORYZA and the ASIAN(SOUND)SCAPES Festival and currently manages Chinese-Pākehā sibling indie-folk duo Ersha Island 二沙岛.

Square is Malaysian-Chinese 马来西亚华族 by heritage, specifically Hakka 客家 Chinese.  He grew up in Kuala Lumpur, read Law in Cardiff, specialised as a Chartered Secretary in Aotearoa, where he now calls Auckland home, with arts manager and creative producer Sums and their young family.

Square can mentor on creative producing, governance, networking, cultural competence, crossover (working across artforms/genres), pitching/negotiation, international touring, and generally, things that don’t fit neatly into boxes.

Paula Yeoman

Paula Yeoman is the co-owner and co-director of NicNak Media alongside Nicole Thomas.

NicNak specialises in artist management and entertainment publicity, and recently launched a new media initiative, Lil Sister, for emerging acts. NicNak also runs a boutique record label for a small roster of Aotearoa artists.

Before establishing NicNak Media, Paula worked as a journalist, with more than 20+ years’ experience in NZ and the UK. She now fronts the management arm of NicNak and is across the day-to-day management of Theia (and Theia’s te reo Māori project TE KAAHU), Paige, Nganeko and TOI. She also works closely with many other NZ artists as a mentor with MMF.

Paula and Nicole are two-time recipients of MMF awards – in 2017, they won the award for ‘Emerging Manager of the Year’ and in 2021, they won ‘Manager of the Year’.

Paula is involved in the day-to-day management of the artists on the NicNak roster and is able to assist in all areas relating to management including pairing artists with writers, producers, engineers, photographers, videographers; helping with funding applications; budgeting; strategy and planning for new releases; touring; branding, developing assets (bios, press shots); social media and creating content.