BPI - CEO

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Music Venue Trust - CEO

Mark is the co-owner of Tunbridge Wells Forum, a venue he founded in a toilet over 30 years ago. Since then, Mark has split his time between various music activities; he spent 20 years as CEO of the award-winning music charity Rhythmix, which used music to works people in challenging circumstances, from pupil referral units to dementia wards. He owns Outstanding Music, a 360-degree music company with a specialism in alternative Latin music and a portfolio of clients that includes Disney, Warner Brothers, CBS, ABC and leading US brands. 

Mark founded Music Venue Trust in 2014, a charity which works to protect, secure and improve Grassroots Music Venues across the UK. MVT represents over 800 venues, members of the Music Venues Alliance, and has campaigned to change laws and policies, to gain greater recognition for the vital work GMVs do and make them more sustainable.

Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a regular speaker at international conferences (ILMC, SXSW, CMW, LAMC, Eurosonic, Primavera Sound, Big Sound, Reeperbahn). He was one of the h100 winners 2015, won the CC Skills Music Award 2017, was NME’s Person of the Year in 2020. Since then he has won a number of awards for his work.

PRS Foundation - CEO

Joe Frankland is CEO at PRS Foundation, the UK’s leading independent charitable funder of new music and talent development.

Since 2000 PRS Foundation has given more than £49 million to over 9,000 new music initiatives by awarding grants and leading partnership programmes that aid music sector development. Widely respected as an inclusive, collaborative and proactive funding body, PRS Foundation supports an exceptional range of new music activity through direct grants to music creators and through support for pioneering organisations.

6 out of the last 7 Mercury Prize winners have received PRS Foundation support at crucial career moments. And the charity has supported recent BRITS, NI Music Prize, Welsh Music Prize, SAY Award, Ivors Composer Award, AIM and RPS Award-winners - perhaps more than anything demonstrating how timely investment in exciting, diverse and innovative talent works to produce critically acclaimed new music and to sustain music creator careers in the UK and internationally. 

Grantee success stories including Little Simz, Wolf Alice, Dave, Cherym, Sam Fender, Years & Years, AJ Tracey, Hannah Peel, Anna Meredith, Yola, The Arborist, Glass Animals, Ezra Collective, Jade Bird, Ghetts, Shiva Feshareki, LEMFRECK, Nadine Shah, Lostboy, Imogen Heap, IDLES, Kae Tempest, Kojey Radical and English Teacher.

PRS Foundation co-founded global gender equality initiative, Keychange and launched the POWER UP initiative which tackles anti-Black racism in music. 

Joe joined PRS Foundation in 2014 and has run flagship schemes including the PPL Momentum Fund and the International Showcase Fund while launching several new initiatives. He was appointed as CEO in 2019.

Frankland previously worked at the forefront of talent development, helping to break artists and build careers at Generator in the North East of England, and is passionate about supporting innovative organisations and a diverse range of music creators across the UK.