Armada Music has appointed two new general managers to captain its operations in the US and the UK

15 February 2023 - Press release

Owing to its rapid expansion in dance music’s key territories, Armada Music has appointed two new general managers to captain its operations in the US and the UK. Starting today, respectively Dan Smith and Ben Malone will be leading the independent dance music label’s teams in New York and London. 

Following the opening of Armada Music’s new, state-of-the-art office in New York City on September 1, 2022, Dan Smith plugs into the label’s NYC set-up to add invaluable experience and know-how. During his 8.5-year tenure as Ultra Records’ Vice President / Global Head of Digital, he worked on campaigns for SOFI TUKKER, Kygo, Steve Aoki and the Grammy-award-winning album ‘SBCNSCLY’ by Black Coffee, leading to 26 gold/platinum releases. He spent the past year at Everyrealm, an immersive media company backed by Nas and The Weeknd, as a marketing director creating metaverse activations for artists and record-breaking NFT projects ‘The Row’ and ‘Fantasy Islands’. In 2021, Smith’s company Anyriot Artist Services provided the music for the Oscar-nominated film ‘Audible’.

Also a long-standing specialist music presenter and DJ for national radio station KISS FM UK and an anchor on Tomorrowland’s One World Radio, Ben Malone has been a key player in Armada Music’s UK team since he took on the role of Label Manager in September 2019. Together with the team, he’s been able to expedite the growth of Armada Music’s UK operation, which has seen 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.

“We have been actively working the US and UK 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 UK 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.”

“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 US will be a key market for realizing this vision.” 

“I’m thrilled to be leading Armada Music’s UK 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 UK and I’m looking forward to supporting their continued successes as we move forward together.” 

While Armada Music’s headquarters in Amsterdam remains the epicenter of the label’s global operations, the teams in the United States and the United Kingdom have been rapidly expanding over the past few years in order to better service their local markets. Both teams are currently outfitted with specialist Product & Marketing Managers, A&Rs, Radio/DJ Promotors and various other specialists whose roles are key to maximizing the effectiveness of Armada Music across its wide range of activities.