2026 Women Of Live: Ali Hedrick

Ali Hedrick
ROAM Artists | Partner / Agent

PHILOSOPHY THAT GUIDES HER CAREER | “Don’t be an asshole, don’t work with assholes and get your job done. I don’t have the patience to work with anything less.”

For Ali Hedrick, launching ROAM is the obvious highlight of her company’s year, with the September 2025 merger bringing together two indie champions in North America-based Arrival Artists and UK-based ATC Live.

“It’s hard to top that one,” Hedrick says. “What makes it meaningful, though, is that we weren’t just merging two businesses. We were trying to build something that feels different. ROAM has real global reach, but it’s still personal — decisions aren’t coming from layers of corporate structure, they’re coming from agents who know their artists and are accountable to them.”

She adds that what makes it real for her are the personal highlights: “Watching Mt. Joy sell out arenas, Royel Otis just exploding everywhere, Amyl and the Sniffers selling out their whole tour, The Swell Season releasing their first album in 11 years, and Car Seat Headrest and Neko Case both have their biggest tours yet. Being a part of and seeing our artists having career moments, that’s what this job is about.”

Hedrick got hooked on music from a very young age, thanks to her older brother who worked at a record store and brought home all types of music for her to listen to, from Black Sabbath to Hank Williams Sr. to Fugazi. After she started going to concerts at age 11 and became “mesmerized by them,” Hedrick went on to enroll in the music business program at Columbia College and eventually realized that rather than being a promoter, manager or label executive, she wanted to be an agent. She adds, “It was clear I wanted to champion emerging talent and carve out my own path in the music world, fueled by my entrepreneurial spirit.”

Her path continues with ROAM, where she notes that what gets her most fired up is what’s coming. “The roster we’re developing right now is special,” she says. “There are artists in our pipeline that I believe in so deeply, acts that are going to matter, that are going to fill rooms and then fill arenas and then become part of people’s lives in that way that only music can. And we get to be part of that journey from the beginning. … Artists come to us because they want a genuine partner, not just a booking machine, and we take that seriously.”