Jo Howarth

Jo graduated from BA (Hons) Music Management (now BA (Hons) Music Business) in 2018. She went on to receive the Outstanding Music Graduate award by UK Music in 2019. Since graduating she has been thriving in the industry and now works as an Artist Manager. We caught up with her to find out about her amazing job and her time at Solent.

Tell us a little bit about your current role?

I’m an Artist Manager at Attention Management. Our roster consists of Barry Can’t Swim, Belters Only, Confidence Man, Good Boys, Jazzy, Mark Ralph (producer), and a band who, up until recently, went by the name easy life.

As a manager, your role is right at the centre of a huge team around each artist. You’re the only person across every aspect of that artist’s business - even more so that the artist themselves sometimes; their job is the music, our job is to facilitate anything else they might create or need created around that. Obviously, we have big teams to help us with that: labels, creatives, marketing teams, international teams, live agents, touring crew - the list goes on. But the manager is the only person who sits across all of it from a holistic point of view, and the buck stops with you!

What do you enjoy most about your role, and what are the biggest challenges?

The thing that drew me to artist management is the people side of what I do. I love the bigger picture; you’re the only person on the team thinking about the artist as a business, a public figure and crucially, a person. I love being part of building a career for a new artist, and of course it’s really rewarding to play a part in keeping that momentum going as their career evolves.

The biggest challenge is often the sheer amount of plate-spinning - the management team are the people pinning the operation together and it’s a lot of moving parts to stay on top of.

What's been your greatest achievement in your career so far?

I’m grateful to have had so many! I never imagined I'd be where I am not 10 years into working in the industry. Getting into the OCC UK Top 3 with the debut song of an artist I managed myself is up there - as a kid I used to listen to the radio and make notes on the OCC chart in a notepad every Sunday night! The same artist receiving a BRIT nomination (for Best International Song no less) was a dream come true too. We’ve worked together since near enough right at the start of her journey, so it’s really fulfilling to be building this together.

How did Solent prepare you for your career?

For me, it was about gaining confidence. I liked how specific my course was to what I wanted to do in my career, and I needed the confidence boost of knowing I knew what I was talking about to hold my own in situations where I was the most junior person in the room in the early days of my career.

What was the best thing about your course lecturers?

My lecturers are still people I rely on and even work with today, nearly 10 years on from meeting them! I can credit them with my career trajectory to date without a shadow of a doubt. Their support was (and still is) so influencing to me.

What advice would you give to those wanting to break it into this industry?

My advice for someone wanting to break into the music would be to try out a few different sectors and work out what it is that you enjoy most. For me, I love artist management as it’s the more nurturing role. Others might find they enjoy more of a marketing role - statistics and sales - and they might find that a record label is the right place for them. Some find that new music is the thing they care about, so publishing or A&R might be the right thing for them. And some love the live side of the industry - touring and festivals. If you’ve tried a fair few of these through work experience while you’re at uni, you’ll come out of it knowing exactly what it is you want, and you’ll have enough experience to land the role.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

Alongside my working role, I am also a Music Business Management lecturer at a university myself - it’s my passion project (although I’m lucky that my real job is a passion project too!). This is undoubtedly inspired by my amazing lecturers at Solent!