Summary Nikki Camilleri joins from London to share her inspiring journey in the music industry, from her early beginnings in Malta to making her mark as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. Raised with a love for art but limited opportunities in creative industries, Nikki discovered her passion through the Young Enterprise competition, which propelled her to the UK and into a career that combined business acumen with music. Her story highlights the power of persistence, internships, and hands-on learning, which ultimately led her to roles at Warner Records and eventually to founding her own venture, Mana. She explains how Mana began as small workshops in 2019 and evolved into a full-fledged company offering mentorship, A&R, and strategy services for independent artists. Nikki emphasizes that artists today cannot work alone – building a team and understanding business fundamentals are essential to longevity. She advocates for careful planning while remaining adaptable, likening an artist’s career to a constantly evolving startup. A key part of Nikki’s philosophy revolves around the concept of super fans. She contrasts them with passive listeners, showing how dedicated supporters drive revenue through tickets, merch, and direct engagement. By focusing on relationship-building and capturing fan data, artists can create sustainability beyond fleeting social media trends. Nikki also touches on the importance of PR, distribution, and brand positioning as interconnected building blocks for artist growth. Her outlook is practical yet optimistic: test ideas early, embrace creativity in marketing, and invest in long-term connections. With projects like TEDx event organizing and a focus on community-driven knowledge, Nikki continues to push boundaries while championing artists at every stage. Topics 0:06 - From Malta to the UK and early inspirations 5:02 - Landing on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list 6:51 - Launching Mana and balancing independence with corporate roles 12:12 - Why building a team is essential for artists 16:11 - Workshopping ideas and adapting business plans 18:38 - Navigating distribution and artist deal options 22:06 - Evaluating talent and building artist strategies 27:59 - Super fans vs passive fans and revenue impact 35:13 - Advice for emerging artists on business and testing 37:22 - TEDx involvement, favorite festivals, and future vision Connect with Nikki Camilleri
- Website: nikkicamilleri.com
- Instagram:https://instagram.com/nikkicamilleri
  About Nikki Camilleri -   Nikki Camilleri is a creative music industry professional with an entrepreneurial spirit and passion for bringing creative ideas to life. Innovation and sustainability in the creative industries are topics of interest for her and motivate her work. She is a first generation British originally hailing from Malta. At 16 she was awarded Microsoft Social Enterprise of the Year and HSBC Company of the Year through Junior Achievement Young Enterprise for her arts and events company that started to help promote local artists. This received recognition most notably from The President of Malta and the 8 o’clock news as well as sponsorship from Vodafone. This achievement spurred her move to London where she has worked in the creative industries championing artists ever since. She specialises in scouting successful IP, digital music distribution, project development and artist/industry relations. Her work has seen her sign independent acts such as Ayelle, Alfa Mist, Cat Burns (Top 10 charting), James Vickery giving many of them their first deal, sign exclusive release deals with Scouting For Girls and work releases by household names such as David Guetta, Disciples and many more. Some of her favourite work has included working Glastonbury Festival and Mayor of London Arts & Culture events, scouting, negotiating and signing international audio and visual content/ IP deals (ranging from record deals to artist / label services and distribution) including a 6-figure deal across international and many emerging markets, conceptualising artist campaigns with amazing talent which has resulted in millions of streams and countless sold out live shows as well as leveraging innovative tech/analytics tools to create a successful music discovery strategy which was tailored and rolled out across 10 territories.  Further to this work, she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a UN Women Delegate 2024, directly supports and mentors independent artists as well as having served as a visiting lecturer at London College of Music (UWL), City University and London College of Contemporary Music (LCCM). Her keen interest in policy and advocacy led her to run a viral petition campaign primarily on Twitter in 2019 receiving over 90,000 signatures and press from Time Magazine and The Independent in aid of a human rights case and she has recently volunteered as a researcher for the United Nations in her spare time. http://nikkicamilleri.comhttp://linkedin.com/in/nikkicamilleri   About The DJ Sessions - “The DJ Sessions” is a Twitch/Mixcloud "Featured Partner” live streaming/podcast series featuring electronic music DJ’s/Producers via live mixes/interviews and streamed/distributed to a global audience. TheDJSessions.com The series constantly places in the “Top Ten” on Twitch Music and the “Top Five” in the “Electronic Music", “DJ", "Dance Music" categories. TDJS is rated in the Top 0.11% of live streaming shows on Twitch out of millions of live streamers. "The DJ Sessions" is listed in the https://podcast.feedspot.com/edm_podcasts/ directory as one of the https://podcast.feedspot.com/edm_podcasts/. It has also been recognized by Apple twice as a "New and Noteworthy” podcast and featured three times in the Apple Music Store video podcast section. UStream and Livestream have also listed the series as a "Featured" stream on their platforms since its inception. The series is also streamed live to multiple other platforms and hosted on several podcast sites. It has a combined live streaming/podcast audience is over 125,000 viewers per week. With over 2,700 episodes produced over the last 16 years "The DJ Sessions" has featured international artists such as: https://www.thedjsessions.com/MattS8525, https://www.thedjsessions.com/TheMidnight9325, https://www.thedjsessions.com/Felix9425, https://www.thedjsessions.com/Jens91025, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/bt-interviewed-on-the-dj-sessions-presented-by-itv-live-6-11-13/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/plastik-funk-on-the-virtual-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-7-9-25/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/Redman081625, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/youngr-on-the-virtual-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-1-25-22/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/dr-fresch-interviewed-on-the-mobile-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-4-28-23/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/ferry-corsten-on-the-on-location-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-at-ade-10-21-22/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/Robert81225, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/darude-on-the-mobile-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-4-21-23/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/herbert-holler-on-the-virtual-sessions-presented-by-thttps://www.thedjsessions.com/Herbert82825he-dj-sessions-6-25-24/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/Meecah81925, https://www.thedjsessions.com/York71525, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/martin-jensen-on%E2%80%A6sessions-9-02-24/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/sevenn-on-the-virtual-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-2-9-22/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/amber-d-on-the-virtual-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-8-13-24/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/joey-riot-on-the-virtual-sessions-presented-by-the-dj-sessions-7-2-25/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/drove-on-the-dj-sessions-on-location-sessions-at-ade-2023-10-19-23/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/podcast/martin-trevy-on-the-dj-sessions-on-location-sessions-at-ade-2023-10-20-23/, https://www.thedjsessions.com/Thomas81225,