(CelebrityAccess) — Armada Music announced the appointment of two new general managers to lead operations in the U.S. and the U.K. amid a period of global expansion at the indie dance label.
Dan Smith will oversee Armada’s operations in the U.S. and will be based in the label’s newly launched state-of-the-art New York City digs, which debuted in September 2022.
Smith comes to Armada after a stint as Vice President / Global Head of Digital at Ultra Records, where he contributed to campaigns for SOFI TUKKER, Kygo, Steve Aoki and the Grammy-award-winning album ‘SBCNSCLY’ by Black Coffee, among others. Smith also launched the company Anyriot Artist Services which provided the music for the Oscar-nominated film ‘Audible.’
“Armada Music is a powerhouse in dance music, and I’m excited to be joining a label I’ve respected for years,” says Dan Smith. “Maykel’s dedication to breaking artists globally is inspiring and the U.S. will be a key market for realizing this vision.”
Armada also announced that Ben Malone has been appointed to oversee the team at the label’s London office. A veteran of the electronic music world, Malone previously served as a music presenter and DJ for national radio station KISS FM UK and an anchor on Tomorrowland’s One World Radio before joining Armada in 2019 as a label manager. Since then, he’s contributed to the label’s UK growth with recent successes in Ben Hemsley’s ‘Erase Me’, Matt Guy’s ‘Set My Mind Free’ and D.O.D’s ‘Set Me Free’ amongst others.
“I’m thrilled to be leading Armada Music’s U.K. operation into the next phase of our development within the territory,” says Ben Malone. Over the past two years, we’ve rapidly expanded our headcount in London and our industry-leading team continues to offer the best possible service to our artists and clients. We have a fantastic and growing roster of artists in the U.K. and I’m looking forward to supporting their continued successes as we move forward together.”
“We have been actively working the U.S. and U.K. territories with our own teams and offices for a while now, and those teams have always been managed by the Dutch management team. In order to take the next step and follow up on the major strides we’ve been making in both territories, we felt we needed to hire skilled local captains,” says Maykel Piron, CEO of Armada Music. “Dan brings a lot of experience and marketing firepower to the table, while Ben has been leading our biggest U.K. successes for the past three to four years. We’re excited to have them moving into their (new) roles and look forward to building out our global presence.”
