Adam Barker (Chair)

Adam is married with three teenage children and lives in West Sussex. He has worked in the music business for more than 20 years having the spent the last 13 years with Universal Music, UK.

Adam’s early career began as a barrister specialising in criminal defence work at Gray’s Inn. After four years at the Bar he was enticed by the bright lights of the music industry having naively believed a record label lawyer friend who convinced him that ‘you could do almost no work, go to the pub a lot and earn loads of money’ (none of which has proved to be accurate). He began by working as a business affairs manager for a number of small independent labels such as Cooking Vinyl before landing a role at Ministry of Sound looking after the legal affairs of the nightclub and record label.

Adam joined Universal Music, UK in 2003 as Director of Business Affairs for the Mercury Records label looking after deals with artists such as Elton John, Metallica, U2 and Mike Oldfield.

His current role as Director of Business Affairs, Universal Music, UK began in 2011 and Adam now oversees all the legal affairs of the UK company.

He was particularly proud to be part of the producing team for Amy Winehouse documentary ‘Amy’ which won both a BAFTA and Oscar for Best Documentary in 2016.

In his spare time (and when not providing a free 24 hour taxi service to his children) Adam spends his time playing tennis, DJing for friends and playing the drums with equal degrees of mild incompetence.