Olaf Kretschmar

After studying philosophy and training in marketing, Olaf Kretschmar entered Berlin’s music scene in the early 1990s. He co-founded Delicious Doughnuts Research (1993) and oxymoron (1997), and co-founded clubcommission berlin e.V. (2000), serving as managing director and spokesperson until 2008. In 2007 he co-founded Berlin Music Commission eG, becoming cluster manager in 2008 and CEO in 2011. He initiated Berlin Music Week (2009), led the campaign Musik 2020 Berlin that paved the way for Musicboard Berlin, and co-founded Most Wanted: Music (2014), where he remains General Director, and LISTEN TO BERLIN: Awards (2015).
At national level, he chairs Bundesverband Popularmusik e.V. (BV POP), the federal network of popular music and pop culture funding organisations in Germany, working to strengthen pop funding structures nationwide. He is also a member of the pop advisory board of the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat). In Berlin, he serves on the presidium of Landesmusikrat Berlin, responsible for popular music and the music industry, and on the advisory boards of Musicboard Berlin and Jazzbeirat Berlin.