Cat's Mother of the Month - Chimene Mantori

It gives us great joy to introduce our next Cat’s Mother of the Month, Chimene Mantori. Chimene joined our network back in November 2019 when we first launched, and has been an amazing source of inspiration for our community ever since! Based in London, Chimene is the Director of Music Partnerships for Live & Touring at Creed Media, recently switching from her 3-year position as Senior A&R Manager at Sony Music Publishing. In this interview, Chimene sheds light on her own first steps into the music industry, what her take on the power of networking is, and what word of advice she’d give to someone looking to break into the sector.

Can you tell us about your first steps into music?

I had wanted to work in music for as long as I can remember but it felt completely out of reach, so it was always just an unrealistic dream in my head. In the summer before my last year at Uni, I figured what's the harm in reaching out to a few record labels to see if I could get some work experience. I reached out cold to my two favourite labels at the time with no expectations, but was luckily enough to land a summer internship with Hospital Records helping with any tasks that needed doing across the whole label. It gave me some great insight into all aspects of running an indie label including A&R, Marketing and Events. The internship led on to me working for them remotely during my final year of Uni and then helped me get a marketing internship at Warner Brothers Records, which then led to a marketing assistant role at Island Records.

What did a typical day look like for you working in A&R?

As a publishing A&R my day was always varied but it would typically include visiting my writers at their studios, taking general meetings, team meetings, setting up sessions for my roster, pitching songs and lots of late night calls with people in LA.

What’s your proudest career achievement or moment to date?

It's difficult to pin point a specific moment but the feeling of winning a deal that you've been chasing after for a long time has always been the best feeling to me. The fact that the artist or writer had options to choose from but chose to come to you is a special feeling!

How did you cross over from marketing to A&R (and back again)?

Honestly, I had always dreamed of doing A&R and saw marketing as a segway into that and a foot in the door as it was easier to get into a label via marketing than A&R at the time. I thoroughly enjoyed marketing but after being in it for a few years I knew I would always regret it if I didn't try to get into A&R. I started a live music night showcasing up-and-coming artists and started speaking to my contacts to keep an eye out for any publishing A&R jobs. At this point i knew I wanted to be a publisher rather than a label A&R as I had a big interest in songwriting and working with writers and producers. I was lucky to be introduced to my former boss Kim Frankiewicz at Concord Music Publishing, who was on the lookout for a junior A&R - she saw something in me even though I had no A&R experience, hired me and took me under her wing, which i will always be grateful for!

From there I was in A&R and songwriter/producer management for 8 years and recently decided to make the switch back to the marketing side of things. I have been friends with my now boss Tim Collins for a few years and have watched him build Creed Media from the ground up over the last three years with his partner Hugo. I saw him building this company from a two-man operation to global staff of almost 90 people with an incredible company culture and was always in awe of what they had built in such a short space of time. I was looking for a new challenge in a more forward-thinking industry and just I felt like I needed to be part of Creed, so I reached out to have a conversation and the rest is history!

What are you loving so far about being Director of Live and Touring over at Creed Media?

It's definitely a challenge as this is an offering that has never been done before so it takes time to convince people that they should change their old marketing ways and try to adopt something new. Luckily the response has been incredible and we've already started booking influencer marketing campaigns for a few tours.

How important are professional relationships in your recent roles? And how do you get the most out of networking?

Relationships are everything! The only jobs I ever applied to were when I was looking at entry level jobs. Since then every single job i've had has been through existing contacts. I was hired for my current job largely because of the global contacts and relationships I have built over the last 12 years of my career. I always focus on building real relationships with people that aren't just focused on work and I find that always leads to great things!

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started/Word of advice for someone starting out?

I wish I had been more vocal with my ideas and opinions early on. You think that because you're young, people won't take you seriously, but you need to remember that you're much closer to the culture and target demographic than the people with more 'experience' than you. As young women especially, we are afraid to voice our opinions, but you need to trust in yourself and your knowledge of music and culture!

I would also say to research all the roles available within the music industry because there are so many new and exciting ones that you may have not thought about. When I started out I didn't know about the options beyond management and record labels - I didn't know what publishing was for my first three years in the music industry and it ended up being the job i loved the most and did for the longest!

When I started out there was also a small range of roles but now with the rise of music tech there are so many exciting options available. Try not to be closed-minded and check out what's out there outside of the record label ecosystem!