26.05.2010: UK Music is delighted to announce that it has won a bid to receive a £40,000 grant from the Cultural Leadership Programme to develop the UK Music Leadership Development Network.

UK Music is delighted to announce that it has won a bid to receive a £40,000 grant from the Cultural Leadership Programme to develop the UK Music Leadership Development Network.

The UK Music Leadership Development Network will create a high level grouping of 6-10 senior leaders, who will drive forward the agenda for music. It aims to bring together leaders from the commercial and non-commercial music sectors, developing their own networks to provide strategy and support to the music community.

UK MLN seeks to address three key leadership challenges:

– To help senior and established leaders develop enhanced skills to lead their companies and/or wider networks

– To improve strategic links between senior leaders and network organisations, including a specific focus on promoting greater cohesion between the national representative organisations and commercial leaders concentrated in London and leaders from around the country working with the national Music Development Agencies

– To provide a mechanism for delivering, evaluating and showcasing the benefits that leadership development can bring to the sector.

The win follows the success of the Music Publishers Association’s delivery of the pilot ‘Music Leaders Network’ in 2007/8, with the new network building in part upon this model.

The Network will be funded for nine months (June 2010 to March 2011) by the grant with a key focus on its sustainability and learning dissemination.

UK Music CEO Feargal Sharkey commented: “This is a great win for us. We are delighted to have received the backing to set up our own Music Leadership Development Network, which puts in place roots for an organisation which will give support and encouragement to the industry’s leaders and visionaries.”

Sharkey is among one of the senior leaders who will take part in the scheme. However, there remain up to three more vacancies. Potential applicants should contact UK Music for further details, with the application deadline being Wednesday 2 June.