At this year's Women In Music Awards, we celebrated the achievements of 13 game-changing executives and artists as the industry came together to honour their work. Music Week has spoken to all 13 winners to tell their stories. Amy Wheatley, the recipient of our Businesswoman Of The Year award, reflects on her career to date, her work in nurturing talent and assesses the state of representation in the industry...
WORDS: COLLEEN HARRIS
This year’s Businesswoman Of The Year, Amy Wheatley, has built her career from the ground up at Sony Music and now leads Columbia Records UK as managing director, establishing herself as one of the industry’s most visionary executives.
Under her leadership, Columbia celebrated the recent breakthrough of exciting singer-songwriter Skye Newman, who in May achieved the rare feat of having her first two singles enter the Top 20 simultaneously – a position she maintained for four weeks. She’s the first UK female solo artist to achieve this milestone in over a decade.
Beyond this achievement, Wheatley has overseen the success of Central Cee, Calvin Harris, Robbie Williams and Wolf Alice, reinforcing Columbia UK’s role as a powerhouse for domestic talent in the face of increasing competition from US superstars.
Beginning her career as a junior production coordinator at Sony in 2008, Wheatley moved to Columbia in 2010 to become label coordination manager. Three years later, she took on the role of product manager, before stepping briefly outside the Sony fold to join Three Six Zero as head of marketing in 2016.
Amy Wheatley on stage with Skye Newman, who presented her award
Returning to Sony as general manager of Ministry Of Sound a year later, before being promoted to managing director in 2021, Wheatley was responsible for driving exponential growth and increased market share across every measure year-on-year – a defining highlight of her career, marking a key chapter before her current role.
Columbia Records UK was ranked No.6 in market share for 2024, with its 5.8% share driven by successful releases across its roster. The label saw major success through its Ministry Of Sound label with the 2023 single Prada by Cassö, Raye, and D-Block Europe and with Tyler, The Creator’s eighth studio album Chromakopia, which reached No. 1 in the UK despite a shortened release week.
Wheatley has also worked on No.1 albums for George Ezra, Foo Fighters, Rag’N’Bone Man and Kasabian, as well as Top 10 albums for artists like 21 Savage, Davido and Depeche Mode. She has also led campaigns including Tate McRae’s Top 3 hit Greedy and parent album Think Later.
Wheatley balances her leadership of Columbia Records UK with raising a family, underscoring the breadth of her achievements both professionally and personally, all while supporting women within the label and beyond. She is a regular contributor to panel discussions, including an International Women’s Day panel moderated by Chair of BPI, YolanDa Brown OBE.
Here, Wheatley reflects on the highlights of her career, on nurturing artistic and executive talent, and on advancing representation in the industry…
First up, huge congratulations on the award! How does it feel to be named Businesswoman Of The Year and why do you think you won?
“I am terrible at taking praise or anything, so I was pretty shocked. The job that I do, you're not front and centre, so I don't ever expect the acknowledgement. It's really nice to get it, and I'm proud [that] all the graft that I've put in over the years has now been seen, and the positive impact that it's had is lovely. I'm really grateful and honoured that people have thought me worthy of [the award]. I'd like to think it's because of my business acumen and the fact that I've managed to grow and develop both Ministry and now Columbia, alongside Dipesh, of course – between us, we've done a lot over our years back at Sony. Team wise; growing a team, being empathetic, being supportive – I hope those are the reasons why I have won. And I guess from an artist side; being very artist-first, artist-friendly and management-friendly.”
What have been some of the biggest challenges on your industry journey so far?
“I think the biggest challenge is getting into the music industry [in the first place], especially if you don't have connections. I had no understanding of how the industry worked. I didn't study [it] at a university. I just knew I really loved it, and I wanted to try and figure that out. I started in production, in the release planning team, and just learned from within, so you saw the labels and tried to figure out how they all worked. It's such a complicated industry that without knowing someone in it, it's a difficult one to figure out – the different nuances of all the roles, and the departments. I think once you're in, the challenges are about raising good people and trying to develop good teams. I love teaching and learning and growing teams. I think that's one of my favourite parts of it.”
You’ve had a long relationship with Sony – what is it about the company that means you’ve made it your home?
“I've been at Sony for 18 years now. I had a gap. Jason [Iley] will call it ‘the blip’. I left for a year or so. But I think Sony is a really nurturing place throughout the business, from Columbia to RCA to Epic, all the labels. The company as a whole is very supportive – top down, Jason and Dipesh – everyone who has been above me has always been really supportive and a key part of my journey. I think it's really important to have your cheerleaders and your mentors to help guide you through those moments, to trust you and to develop you. I think there has been a lot of trust from people at Sony to invest time, energy and effort into me, to help me grow. Not saying I didn't do a lot of it by myself as well, but I think Sony just has a really great culture of supporting each other and lifting each other up.”
What did you take from your time at Ministry Of Sound into Columbia – and how’s it going there so far?
“At Ministry, we were small, we were nimble. Because Ministry was an indie before [the 2016 acquisition], we always used to think of ourselves as an indie within a major. We were a really tight-knit team. There was a lot of communication, a lot of collaboration. I think bringing that into Columbia, obviously it's on a larger scale, but I still think communication, collaboration, teamwork, just making sure that we're artist-friendly and artist-first is really important. And, so far, it's going pretty well.”
There needs to be greater respect towards women – they're there for a reason, and they need to be treated as such
Amy Wheatley
You’ve been involved in lots of success for emerging UK acts, what is the key to nurturing new talent?
“It's about listening to the artists’ vision. It's about working with them, understanding, not having your own agenda and your own MO, building together and having a vision of where you want to go. I think that's the key, and just making sure that you don't miss steps, as in, there's building blocks to be done at every level. I think it's also graft, and intention: why are you doing what you're doing? You've got to super-serve the fans, understand what the fans want and what that audience needs. The artists that are breaking through are the ones that really do speak to an audience and a team, and have that weight behind them. They'll galvanise people and inspire people or connect with them. I think that's how you cut through. We talk about it a lot as a label. The artist has to want it as much as you do, and they have to come with a vision. If we try to impose our own vision on it, it will never work.”
Your role also encompasses nurturing new execs – how do you do that? What support do they need, particularly young women?
“They need empathy. They need to understand that this is a job and there is a life outside of this. They need space and encouragement to be creative. And I think they need trust. That’s probably one of my biggest things. I feel like a consultant on a lot of things, if that makes sense. People come to me, they ask me questions, it's very much a collaboration and a conversation of what they need and what their opinions are because a lot of these execs will be more in the weeds on certain things, so they should trust their instincts. Everyone has a journey as an exec; people need to make their own mistakes or learn by themselves. So you can guide and nurture them, you can support them in those decisions, but they have to make those decisions and learn from whatever those decisions were, whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. We're here, we'll help you and we'll support you, but I'm not here to tell you what to do.”
Do you think there’s enough up-and-coming female talent on the exec side of things?
“I have a very female-heavy team, so I would say, from my side of things, yes. I have my director of promotions, my marketing director, my head of digital. We do have a lot of very talented female execs at Columbia. Throughout the industry, I think there's definitely more [coming through]. I think there is still the difficulty of having children; you see a big drop-off of women at that point, but it's becoming more palatable for women to have a family. There’s a lot of women now that sit across the Sony senior management team; Brooke Salisbury, our SVP of international, there’s me, Stacey [Tang] who co-runs RCA. I think there's been a real drive to increase representation.”
You're also raising a family - what would you say about your experience of motherhood in the industry?
“Sony's parents’ leave policy [which won at the 2024 Women In Music Awards] is amazing. I've become a new mum, and I took a year, which meant that you get such valuable time with your baby. My oldest is now nearly five. Also, the culture when you come back – I have a very supportive team and manager. Dipesh is amazing and supports me, so does Jason, especially with looking after my children and making sure I’m doing what I need to do for them. Having those policies in place has made a huge difference in juggling mum-life and work-life. Now we have flexi working so we can work from home. We have core hours. I'm militant on picking my kids up three times a week. I will make sure I pick them up at five when it's my day. There's a real top-down understanding that it's important, and it's only a small period of my life that I'll be doing this for. I'm still here for the team. I still do all my work. I'll come online later if I need to, but when I'm with the kids, that is what I'm doing. I don't think there are enough women, personally, in senior positions across the industry, because it gets difficult. It is hard, but you need to have things in place and teams in place to be able to help you.”
These awards always bring about important conversations about representation in the industry. What is the one issue you wish to highlight most here?
“Women can still be disproportionately spoken down to, put aside, or spoken over. I think there needs to be greater respect towards women in these roles, in these places. They're there for a reason, and they need to be treated as such. There are lots of other things that we can talk about but… [laughs].”
What are your biggest ambitions for the future?
“[Dipesh and I have] been here nearly three years now. It's taken us a minute to resettle, get our feet under the table. We’re taking very seriously the responsibility of Columbia's legacy [and developing] what Columbia's new legacy looks like. We've obviously started with the likes of Wolf Alice and we've got Skye [Newman], Aaron [Rowe] and Chloe Qisha; there are lots of artists coming through that we're really excited to push with the new Columbia era. My ambition for the future is to really establish that, drive it forward and continue to have the success with [these new artists] that we have had up to this point.”
