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Association For Electronic Music Names Silvia Montello Chief Executive Officer
Silvia Montello has been named chief executive officer of the Association For Electronic Music (AFEM). Montello succeeds Greg Marshall, who’s been leading the non-profit for the past four years.
Montello first joined AFEM as a committee member in 2019, playing a key role in its rights management and livestreaming working groups. Prior to joining AFEM, Montello’s 30-plus years of music industry experience included senior executive positions held at Our Price Music, Gramophone Publications, PolyGram/Universal, BMG, and Kobalt Music/AWAL, where she served as the senior vice president of operations.
More recently, Montello served as the head of business development at Blokur prior to joining Audio Network as its head of operations in 2021. In 2011, she founded and continues to serve as the CEO of VoiceBox Consulting, a music industry consultancy offering marketing, communications, project management and business planning services for a plethora of clients.
She is also the Co-founder and current director of #remarQabl, an electronic music record label championing upcoming female, LGBTQ+ and ethnically diverse talent. Montello is a graduate of City, University of London, and currently lives in London.
Graphite Media Director and International Music Summit co-founder Ben Turner and entertainment lawyer Kurosh Nasseri founded AFEM in 2013. The non-profit organization connects and represents the common interests of companies and artists, in the electronic music business.
AFEM counts more than 250 members across 25 countries, representing all industry sectors within the electronic genre. Over the decade since AFEM’s launch, the global electronic music industry grew nearly 75%, from $4 billion a year to a pre-pandemic level of $7 billion in 2019, according to the 2019 IMS Business Report.
By AFEM’s own admission, “the electronic music genre has been at the forefront of new technology adoption from DJ set live streams, NFTs and music metaverse platforms, to continual progression of the mediums DJs and artists use to perform and reach new audiences; the market is poised for continued growth.”
Montello said, she was “hugely excited to be joining AFEM as its new CEO, truly aligning my professional industry experience and personal energy into the music which has been my lifelong passion. AFEM has already achieved so much in its first 10 years and I thank Greg and the team for their incredible work laying the foundations for the Association to further extend its reach, efficacy and voice for the global community. Our industry continues to evolve at a pace, forever bringing with it new opportunities and emerging technologies. I look forward to helping bring together an amazing ecosystem of platforms, organisation, professionals and creators in building sustainable success through innovation, diversity, inclusion and collaboration.”
Montello will give one of the opening keynotes at this year’s International Music Summit (IMS)in Ibiza, April 27-29.