In the first quarter of the year, a significant number of high-profile acts have made changes to their management teams.
At the top of 2025, Gigi Perez, known for her viral hit “Sailor Song,” parted ways with Laffitte Management Group and The Chainsmokers and longtime manager Adam Alpert dissolved their management deal though the chart-topping dance act is still represented by Alpert’s Disruptor Records and remain partners in several other ventures.
In February, Lil Nas X parted ways with Adam Leber‘s Rebel and signed with Crush Music for management. Then in March, Billboard’s Women In Music executive list revealed that Janelle Lopez Genzink, founder and CEO of Volara Management, the firm behind superstar Sabrina Carpenter, signed longtime free agent HAIM, which The Azoff Company’s Full Stop formerly represented. That same month, Noah Cyrus signed a management deal with Range Music, having formerly been represented by TaP.
And in the weeks following Q1’s close, Best Friends Music lost three high-profile clients: Billie Eilish and Finneas parted with Best Friends co-founders/co-managers Danny Rukasin and Brandon Goodman to sign with Sandbox Entertainment’s Jason Owen; and Rukasin’s rising star client Role Model departed, too. In late April, Chappell Roan’s new management team was finally announced — led by Foundations Music’s Drew Simmons — after the artist parted with State Of the Art last November. And at the top of May, Billboard reported that Camila Cabello and her longtime manager Roger Gold had split.
Artists swapping managers is hardly a rare occurrence. As one 20-plus-year veteran of artist management says, “Working with high-profile pop artists can be incredibly stressful, especially when things start to go wrong — it can feel like you’re in a sinking ship and can’t find where the water is coming in.”
Having managed some of the biggest acts of the mid-2000s, the veteran manager has seen their fair share of shakeups. But they argue that what has changed in the field is the job’s visibility – and scrutiny. “Social media has made it much easier for a manager to position themselves as a public figure, and some, Scooter [Braun] being a good example, understood that world and navigated it in a really smart way. And I remember watching it over time — it was such a different approach to using persona as a way to complement the business that you’re trying to build.”
And now, the industry itself is giving the field a bigger platform. “You have places like ROSTR, which I think has made it really easy and accessible for a passive participant in the industry to be aware of information,” continues the source. “And the passive participant probably creates a much different echo chamber than historically the people who read [trade publications].” (To prove their point, the popular X account PopCrave, known for posting surface-level updates across pop culture, shared the news of Roan’s new management setup.)
The longtime manager/label executive agrees that social media has altered the playing field. “We’re constantly comparing and looking at how someone is doing better than us. Managers, writers, producers — we’re all looking at it. I have producer clients that see other producers posting cuts and then they’re [feeling] down. Artists do that as well, and I think the manager is typically the first to blame and the easiest to get out of a deal because we don’t have the contracts that a label or a publisher has. Agents and lawyers do, too, but they get fired all the time and no one knows about it.”
Given the recent spate of shake-ups, the veteran manager says his profession needs to consider a core question: “When society and consumer behavior changes and evolves, how quickly do industries reassess?”
Some contend that reassessment is happening right now, with one calling Eilish and FINNEAS’ departure from Best Friends — where they had been since the beginning of their careers — “this natural tipping point of like, ‘Huh. Why?’”
“It’s social media,” argues the manager/label executive. “Artists are quicker to move on. And I do think that’s just the nature of society today and this instant gratification culture. Artist empowerment is phenomenal, [but] maybe this is a small downside to it, that artists think they know everything.”
Another source points to the ongoing reevaluation of remuneration as an underlying reason for recent changes. Traditionally, a music manager will receive a commission on all business in which an artist engages. But the fast-changing field – and music industry at large — is why some believe more artists want to build “in-house teams like Taylor [Swift],” according to the boutique firm owner. “They don’t want to pay commissions. They want to structure it differently.”
But, such an arrangement is typically reserved for music’s upper echelon, with the artist manager-executive saying, “it takes a rare artist in the sense that, economically, it makes more sense when you’re at a certain level to carry that overhead. If you’re playing arenas and stadiums, then that is probably something you should be thinking about. But at the same time, if you started your career with a manager and you’re 10 years in, I think that’s a rough time for you to be like, ‘Hey, by the way, I think you should switch to salary.’”
Which is why the boutique firm owner argues that “really good managers who do so much should actually participate more — and have equity. The label, the rest of the team, it’s all really driven by management. Fifteen percent [commission] is not [enough] to cover all the overhead and everything that you do for an artist and everything that the label doesn’t do.” (In the case of a management deal ending, they insist sunset clauses, in which managers are entitled to continued pay for a set period after an artist fires them, are “crucial.”)
It all adds up to a climate in which the veteran pop manager can’t help but wonder: “In a world where it is so easy for you to search out what other people are doing or how to do something [yourself], how manageable can a person be?”
