Compass Management

Darren Henderson has worked across a number of entertainment and media arenas. He spent 11 years at Sony Music working on acts as diverse as the reformation of Take That, the come back of Andy Williams and Elvis. He worked on the Take That documentary “For The Record’, launched the recording careers of X Factor stars and numerous heritage artists including Tony Bennett, Celine Dion, Lou Reed and Nina Simone.

Darren is an experienced, ideas driven, management executive who is considered an ambitious and creative individual, prepared to make decisions and can help to lead a team. His ability to share his knowledge with a diverse selection of organisations is clearly a natural working style for Darren.

Having a persuasive and resilient approach means that getting things done and learning from his experiences gained comes naturally. A rapid progression to a senior management position has enabled communication skill being development across all levels. Experience across traditional marketing techniques coupled with a full understanding of the digital opportunities offers a balanced profile.

Darren spent 11 years working his way up the ladder at SonyBMG to the board level position of Senior Vice President, which gave him responsibility for all aspect of the Commercial Label group. This included the management of a team of 46, financing of a £200M turnover business, generation of new business models and the creation of the digital strategy. In his final role at SonyBMG he was asked to use this experience in France and help their Marketing divisions draw on his knowledge.

At the centre of Darren’s knowledge is his understanding of marketing, communications and translating business into straight-forward objectives that focus on getting the job done. He believes that using the logical steps of understanding the customer, having a great product, knowing how media works, being strong creatively and backing the winners will result in any business or artist improving their success and profitability. This was demonstrated perfectly when in his first year as Head Of Marketing at BMG he more than double the divisions profit.

Some of his successes include the reformation of Take That, which at the time seemed impossible. None of the band members or manager spoke to each other and there was a royalty dispute. Darren saw this as an opportunity and resolved the royalty dispute, which opened up the relationships. Then utilizing his persuasive and creative skills he convinced them to make a documentary and create a new Best Of album. The project was handed over to the team who had a task to complete but also a creative responsibility to make the project great, which they did. The album has now sold 2 million copies, the documentary won The Rose Award and was ITVs highest rating documentary that year. The band is now, once again, the biggest selling British Pop act.

Following the phenomenal success of a simple 10″ vinyl promotion for the first Elvis single, That’s Alright Mama, there was clearly a huge demand for limited Elvis products. Therefore he came up with the idea of reissuing all of Elvis’ No.1 singles, 1 by 1, each week for 18 weeks. Uniquely presented the consumer bought the first one in a box that would house the next 17. The first reissue went to No.1 in the singles chart, the project went on to sell over 750K units, make over £1M profit and win the Music Week Marketing Award.

Darrens Compass management company is the perfect opportunity for any artist or business, (new, established, small or large), to draw on his extensive experience of marketing and communication in the media world to help them improve their overall performance, success and profitability.