Steve Lewis (9)

British manager, producer, record label executive and publisher, based in London. Steve Lewis career in music business started in 1969, when still a schoolboy, he met Richard Branson and worked for fledgling Virgin Records mail order retail company during school summer holiday. After that first experience, he stayed in touch with the Virgin staff and in 1973 he dropped out of university, and began working full time running Virgin’s artist management company. He then worked successively for Virgin Records label (Deputy Managing Director), Virgin Music Publishers (CEO) until 1992, Chrysalis Group Music Division (CEO), Stage Three Music (Founder/CEO). He also started his own management company (Smart Management) with partner Dominic Miles in 1977 to manage Steve Hillage and The Young Ones (2), while still working for Virgin Records at the same time. He has previously been a director of the Music Publishers Association, MCPS, Association of Independent Music (AIM) and PRS. He’s still an active music publisher, sitting on the boards of several music tech companies, and offering strategic advice to rights owners, artists, media and music tech companies through his company ‘Steve Lewis Services’.