MW:M 2025
Speakers

Confirmed Speakers MW:M24

Here we announce the confirmed speakers of Most Wanted: Music 2024. This list will be successively updated until the event, so check back from time to time.

Meet our talking heads

We are pleased to present you a number of this year’s speakers and discussion partners from a huge variety of business sectors.

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Our confirmed speakers

Janet Merkel

Technische Universität Berlin

Job Title: Senior Researcher

Name: Janet Merkel

Company: Technische Universität Berlin

Biography: Dr. Janet Merkel is a social scientist and urban sociologist. She works as a research assistant at the Institute for Urban and Regional Planning at TU Berlin in the Department of Urban and Regional Economics. Her research interests are in social and spatial organisation and the production conditions of cultural and creative industries; cultural-creative work and freelance employment; cultural policy in cities; as well as questions of urban governance and urban policy. She has worked at the Social Science Research Center Berlin, the Hertie School of Governance, as an assistant professor for cultural and creative industries at the City University of London,and held the professorship for the economics of urban and regional development at the University of Kassel.

Jessy James LaFleur

ANGEPRANGERT! Spoken Word

Job Title: Spoken Word Artist & Founder of ANGEPRANGERT!

Name: Jessy James LaFleur

Company: ANGEPRANGERT! Spoken Word

Biography: Jessy James LaFleur is a nomad with conviction; a spoken word artist, a rapper, an activist, a workshop host, and an entrepreneur – who has taken a million and one paths around the world over the last 20 years. Raised in east Belgium, she has brought her poetry to the stage in more than 30 countries, and in three different languages. She is the founder of the aspiriational initiative “ANGEPRANGERT! SPOKEN WORD”, that teaches young poets from rural areas and ethnic minorities how to use their voice on stage.

Laura Magnano

KLEF

Job Title: Co-Founder

Name: Laura Magnano

Company: KLEF

Biography: Laura is the co-founder of KLEF, a culture-led fan engagement platform for artists & creators. Known as a web3 pragmatist, Laura brings a level-headed view to utilising blockchain technology for the greater good, with a focus on democratisation and accessibility. Her approach is informed by her career across tech, marketing and her deep dive in web3 in 2016; from running marketing agencies, consulting brands on new internet cultures to co-founding the first kyc/aml blockchain protocol in 2018.

Noura Labbani

Dice

Job Title: Director Venue & Promoter Partnerships, Germany

Name: Noura Labbani

Company: Dice

Biography: Berlin-born, Algerian-raised Noura Labbani has been working in the music scene for over 15 years. She started at !K7 Records in Berlin, held an A&R Assistant job at EMI Music and worked at Dailymotion as the Country Manager for Germany, Beatport’s Director of Content Europe and at Patreon as Creator Partnerships Manager for France. In June 2022 she joined DICE as Director of Venue & Promoter Partnerships Germany.

Emiko Gejic

Berlinsidestories

Job Title: Founder/Artist/Speaker/Manager

Name: Emiko Gejic

Company: Berlinsidestories

Biography: Emiko is a Berlin-born artist, creative, founder, guide, speaker and event manager with a background in urban studies and urban research. With her company Berlinsidestories, she hosts self-organized tour events about urban development, club culture, subculture, creative industries, urban change and activism. She also works as a dancer and actress in the Berlin art scene. She is part of the Factory Berlin community as a Creative Relations Manager, where she connects creatives with tech companies.

Florian Weghorn

Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin

Job Title: Programme Manager Berlinale Talents

Name: Florian Weghorn

Company: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin

Biography: Florian Weghorn is the Programme Manager of Berlinale Talents, the talent development initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival; with seven global offshoots, ranging from Beirut to Tokyo. Florian joined the Berlinale team in 2002. From 2008 to 2014, he was the co-director and curator of the Generation section with around 60 short and feature films annually. Between 2012 and 2019, Florian was also a member of the Berlinale Competition selection committee.

A couple more of our past Speakers

While we have not been able to announce any new speakers yet, you are welcome to take a look at who has already taken part in recent years. As soon as we have the first confirmed speakers for 2024, we will list them on this page and inform everyone who has signed up for our newsletter.

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Our confirmed speakers

Tom Nieuweboer

COO | !K7 Music GmbH

Job Title: COO

Name: Tom Nieuweboer

Company: !K7 Music GmbH

Biography:

Tom Nieuweboer is Chief Operating Officer at !K7 Music since 2014. He is responsible for the day to day operations of the company across the three offices in Berlin, New York and London, HR, process management, IT strategy as well as the financial reporting to the board and other stakeholders.

Tom is member of the Board of IMPALA and former member of the board of AFEM.

Until end of 2013 he was also heading the digital department at the !K7 label group. This included being key account manager digital distribution and being responsible for new business development in terms of exploiting master rights in the digital environment.

!K7 is a multi-faceted music company working out of offices in Berlin, London and New York.

!K7’s group of inhouse labels includes !K7 (Michael Mayer, Tosca, Hundred Waters) Strut (Sun Ra, Ebo Taylor, Mulatu Astatke), Aus (Midland, Bicep, Huxley) DJ-Kicks (Marcel Dettman, Matthew Dear, Jackmaster, Seth Troxler, Nina Kraviz, Moodyman) and 7K (Luca D’Alberto, Martyn Heyne, Niklas Paschburg).

!K7 provides global marketing, sales and distribution services to a like-minded group of labels from around the globe including, Gondwana, Luaka Bop, International Anthem, R&S, Rush Hour, We Jazz, Turbo, Planet E, Sonar Kollektiv and more.

!K7 also provide artist direct services to manage all aspects of a release (Fat Freddy’s Drop, Tricky, The Pop Group and Crazy P).

Achan Malonda

Artist, Singer-Songwriter

Job Title: Artist, Singer-Songwriter

Name: Achan Malonda

Biography: Achan MALONDA is a singer, songwriter and activist based in Berlin. Her early musical influences ran from punk to choral music. After studying media economics she landed the role of Sarabi in the musical “The Lion King“ and also joined the multicultural female artist collective ChixxClique as singer and host. She moved to Berlin in 2013 to pursue her music career and signed with the Jokasong division of BMG in 2015. Her debut EP “Mondin“ was released in February 2019. Achan Malonda is currently working on her first album. Click here to see all our confirmed speakers for Most Wanted: Music 2020.

Prof. Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen

Goldsmiths & University of London | Professor in Music Psychology

Job Title: Professor in Music Psychology

Name: Prof. Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen

Company: Goldsmiths & University of London

Biography: Daniel Müllensiefen is Professor of Music Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His work comprises computer models of music perception and the behavioural economics of music. He received the prestigious Anneliese-Maier research prize from the Humboldt foundation. He has been Scientist in Residence with London-based advertising agency adam&eveDDB. Currently Daniel is lead investigator on a large project benchmarking the emotional-semantic and cognitive effects of music on brands.

Dr. Winter

University professor

Job Title: Universitätsprofessor für Medien- und Musikmanagement

Name: Dr. Winter

Biography:

Dr. Carsten Winter is a university professor for media and music management at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, where he is the spokesperson for the Master’s programme ‘Media and Music’. He researches and develops digital strategies and tactics for old and new music and media players, especially ‘young professionals’ and new opportunities and challenges of and in media and music ecosystems.

He is a member of the board of the German Society for Music Business and Music Culture Research (GMM e.V.) and the board of the International Music Business Research Association (IMBRA e.V.), co-editor of the International Journal of Music Business Research (Sciendo) as well as an international and two national book series on music business and music culture research (Springer).