2025 Impact 50 Honoree: Drew Simmons

DREW SIMMONS
Partner
Foundations

LIFE-CHANGING CONCERT: ”Noah Kahan at Fenway Park was revitalizing, the most transcendent live
concert experience I have had professionally.”

PERSON YOU CAN’T DO YOUR JOB WITHOUT: “My wife, Kelly.”

Twenty years ago Drew Simmons spent a summer cleaning pools in The Hamptons in between management jobs, marking his last job that didn’t involve the live business. Suffice to say, he’s now a bit too busy to take on a second job – thanks to superstar clients including Noah Kahan and the late-April signing of the meteoric Chappell Roan.

Simmons got his start in the music industry with an internship at Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. While in college at Northeastern University in Boston, he worked security at shows and then took on the roles of a production assistant and runner, along with working in the box office for local venues throughout New England, at the time promoted by legendary Beantown promoter Don Law (whose company is now part of Live Nation). Simmons also managed a few artists out of his dorm room and after graduating he spent time at Mark Kates’ Fenway Recordings and Red Light Management.

Since first coming across Kahan’s song “Sink” on SoundCloud in 2014, Simmons has helped guide the career of the affable singer/songwriter as he eventually embraced a more folk-leaning sound and found mainstream success with 2022’s Stick Season. Over the course of the past decade, Kahan has gone from playing open mics and local shows to now headlining arenas (and even a stadium or two). Simmons previously spoke to Pollstar in late 2023 shortly after Kahan had announced the biggest shows of his career including two nights each at New York’s Madison Square Garden ( 26,909 tickets sold, grossing $4.5 million) and Boston’s Fenway Park (76,499 tickets, $10.6 million grossed) in July 2024. Simmons said “at no point in his career was there ever any doubt that [Kahan] was going to achieve this type of success.”

Simmons explains that he was drawn to the role of manager because of the “desire to be close to the creative process,” while his philosophy with Kahan has “always been guided by what is fulfilling for Noah. I feel like that’s super important – to identify the goals of your client and tailor the philosophy toward them.”

Following reports last fall that Chappell Roan had split with her then-management, Foundations announced in late April she had signed with Simmons. Roan’s career exploded over the past year, including her 2024 festival sets at Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza having to be bumped up to bigger stages and resulting in seas of people for daytime sets. Her accolades include winning the Grammy for Best New Artist, the BRIT Award for Best International Artist and Pollstar Award for New Headliner of the Year.

When asked about his most impactful accomplishments and initiatives this year, Simmons points to The Busyhead Project, a nonprofit founded by Kahan for mental health services and awareness. The organization initially launched with a goal of raising $1 million for mental health, with a dollar per ticket sold going to the Busyhead project, including funding regional mental health services.

“We just reached our two-year milestone and we’ve raised over $4 million to increase awareness, provide resources and reduce stigma around mental health. In addition to the 164 community-based organizations we’ve supported globally we also developed a program in partnership with Hilary Gleason at Backline to provide free therapy services for Noah’s band and crew,” Simmons says.

As for inspiring initiatives in the biz, Simmons shouts out the music industry’s response to the L.A. Fires and praises Roan for “spotlighting the need to improve access to health care for artists and our industry’s gig-workers.” After using her Grammy acceptance speech to advocate that record labels provide artists with health care, Roan made a $25,000 donation to Backline and the nonprofit launched the We Got You! campaign to support artists’ mental health. Kahan was inspired to also donate $25,000 and Charli xcx soon did the same, followed by others.

Up next, Kahan and Roan each have a ton of festival dates lined up with Kahan playing Glastonbury, Montreux Jazz Festival and Bourbon & Beyond, among others, and Roan’s schedule including Primavera Sound, Reading and Leeds, and Pukkelpop Festival.

“I’m looking forward to Noah Kahan’s BST Hyde Park show and Chappell Roan’s summer run in Europe,” Simmons says. “I’m very excited about working on the next chapter for both Noah and Chappell.”