POWER 50 2025: Maggie Collins (Association of Artist Managers)

BACKGROUND CHECK:

Hailing from the thriving music city of Brisbane, Maggie Collins has carved out an influential, distinctly multi-disciplinary career across the Australian music landscape. Over the past 17 years, she has worked at the intersection of media, artist development and industry advocacy, beginning with a decade as both presenter and producer at triple j, where she became a trusted voice for new Australian music. Alongside her broadcasting work, she founded Morning Belle, an artist management company that guided a number of ARIA-winning and Gold-accredited acts, cementing her reputation for nurturing genre-diverse talent with care and strategic precision.

As Executive Programmer of BIGSOUND from 2016 to 2019, Maggie helped shape Australia’s largest music conference and showcase event during a period of significant growth, before moving into sector leadership as Executive Director of the Association Of Artist Managers (AAM). Recognised with The Lighthouse Award in 2020 for her integrity, advocacy and community-minded leadership, she continues to influence national policy and professional development, more recently having joined the Management Committee of QMusic in 2024.

THE YEAR IN AUSTRALIAN MUSIC:

Collins is undoubtedly one of the most influential voices shaping the future of the Australian music industry, transforming artist management into a recognised pillar of cultural and economic policy. In her role at the AAM, she has driven major national reforms that strengthen workforce sustainability, gender equity and small-business viability, with her leadership producing landmark policy contributions such as proposals for childcare-on-tour deductions, an Artist Manager Development Offset, and expanded income averaging. Through her work in the worlds of public advocacy, media engagement and initiatives like the AAM Awards, she’s elevated the visibility and cultural capital of artist managers, ensuring their contributions are properly recognised as essential infrastructure of the music industry.

Meanwhile, Collins has reignited and led the national push for Michael’s Rule, securing its first government adoption in NSW – a major win that directly boosts touring opportunities for Australian artists. Across initiatives such as the AAM Placements Program and a newly secured national partnership with Virgin Australia, she has strengthened workforce stability, created meaningful entry pathways for emerging managers, and expanded the resources available to those guiding Australian artists’ careers.

THE MUSIC SPEAKS:

A straight shooter, Maggie Collins has the passion, realism and experience to bring together what is an incredibly disparate sector. She understands that the differences in managers are as wide as the differences between their artists and that representing them requires a leadership style that’s collaborative, caring, understanding and supportive. A diverse pool of managers who are working for their artists rather than trying to fit them into a cookie-cutter mould must create challenges for Collins, but she is just the person to not just understand those differences, but embrace them and turn them into a collective positive. 

The advocacy around Michael’s Rule has been an important win for the AAM through Collins’ tireless work advocating for change, and while it’s not perfect, it’s given the industry a place to work from for future change and a great example of the power of managers as a cohort to not just be invited to the advocacy table, but to be the ones leading it.