Tonya Butler, Chair of the Music Business/Management Department at Berklee College of Music
Professor Tonya Butler, J.D., LL.M., is chair of the Music Business/Management Department at Berklee College of Music. She is the first women and the first person of color to lead the department in its 30-year history.
A seasoned veteran of the music business, Butler has more than 14 years of expertise as an entertainment attorney and record label executive, as well as 16 years of undergraduate- and graduate-level teaching experience. She has a Juris Doctorate from California Western School of Law and a Master of Laws in Entertainment and Media from Southwestern University School of Law/Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, England.
Butler is an award-winning motivational speaker, Toastmaster, and author of the self-published career guide The Music Business Is Corrupt, or Maybe You Just Can’t Sing? She also hosts a weekly podcast on the business and legal aspects of the music industry, entitled the B.O.M.B. (Business of Music Bootcamp) Podcast.
Wesley T. A'Harrah, VP Membership & Education at MMF-US
Wesley T. A’Harrah, 30, is an artist manager, marketing-tech consultant, and investor. Wesley is the founder of Hits Differently, an artist-management company whose clients include iAmTheGENIUS, Maty Noyes, Kristian Kostov, Lil Bird, Ellis Miah, and more; and Hyper Orange, a consultancy focused on helping entertainment companies, brands, and agencies build and activate the best marketing stacks. Wesley is business partners with Atlanta-based entrepreneur, rapper, and DJ, iAmTheGENIUS, in Mixtape Monopoly, a marketing agency; Monopoly Distribution, a distribution and label services company; and RARE Sound, a record label, where he and GENIUS have spent years independently operating with K CAMP—whose song Lottery (Renegade) held as the biggest song ever in TikTok for seven months and was the first song in the world to pass 15, 20, 30, and 35 million videos created with it. RARE Sound, Mixtape Monopoly and Hyper Orange are the only independent label and connected marketing agencies to have been honored with the Grand Clio for Music in 2020, where they were awarded for the campaign behind Lottery (Renegade). Wesley serves as the Vice President of Membership and Education of the Music Managers Forum-US, the 501(c)6 trade association for artist managers and self-managed artists. He holds an M.A. in Global Entertainment and Music Business from Berklee College of Music.
Sharon Tapper, Executive Director of MMF-US
Sharon Tapper is the Executive Director of the Music Managers Forum-US, the leading trade association for artist managers and self-managed artists in the United States. Serving the music community by providing educational resources, networking opportunities and advocacy efforts on behalf of managers, self-managed artists, and the music community at large that supports them. The MMF-US is part of a larger global network, the International Music Managers Forum (IMMF) – an organization that connects more than sixty-five Music Manager Forums around the world (inc. Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand).
Prior to joining the MMF-US Tapper worked in London as the Assistant Manager at Sarm West Studios, before relocating to the U.S. where in Los Angeles she worked at both Left Bank Management and Gallin Morey Management. Shortly after moving to New York she transitioned into music publishing becoming the third U.S. employee at Kobalt Music Publishing and their VP Creative for eight years. Following that she was hired to be the SVP Music Publishing at Razor & Tie Music Publishing. Tapper was elected to serve multiple terms totaling fourteen years as Governor & Secretary of the NY Chapter of the GRAMMY’s, serving six consecutive terms as Co-Chair of their Advocacy Committee, on which she continues to diligently serve. She also served four years on the NY Chapter of the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP). For ten years she Co-Funded and ran the New York City Creative Community (NYC3).