Amber Carew

Carew (she/her) is currently Marketing and Community Manager at Topshelf Records in the U.S. where she works across campaigns on socials + marketing, creative + visual direction, retail promo, artist + partner outreach, mutual aid initiatives, and A&R. With over a decade of experience in the industry and at labels such as Saddle Creek, Anti and Epitaph, Amber has been responsible for signings such as Ryan Hemsworth, Spirit of the Beehive, Palm, Indigo De Souza, Pendant, Tomberlin, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Ada Lea, Stef Chura, Cass McCombs, Andy Shauf, Girlpool, The Drums, Japandroids, and more.

Amber Still

Amber Still (they/them) has been the Executive Director of Polaris Music Prize since December 2021. Since taking the role, Amber has made significant changes to the signature programming while also introducing opportunities that further push the mandate of the charity. Amber has worked in the not-for-profit arts, culture, and human rights advocacy sector for 13 years supporting organizations such as Pride Toronto, The 519, Artscape, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. Over the course of their career Amber has raised over $20 million in sponsorship and event revenue.

Amy Hersenhoren

Amy Hersenhoren has worked in the music business since 1989. Her first job was as the contract administrator for a booking agency whose clients included Alice Cooper and Max Webster tribute acts. She has spent time working in management (King Cobb Steelie, Change of Heart, Ui, Ida, Trina Shoemaker) and on the label side (Sub Pop, Nettwerk) before moving to NYC to run producer Bill Laswell’s Orange Music Sound Studios. There she worked with Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins, John Zorn and many others. She is currently co-owner of We Are In The Future in Toronto.

Colette Arrand

Colette Arrand is a publicist, poet, and critic living in Durham, North Carolina. Her work includes the poetry collections Hold Me Gorilla Monsoon and The Future Is Here and Everything Must Be Destroyed, editorial positions at The Wanderer, Fanbyte, and Paste Magazine, and more. Colette’s current projects include the BIG EGG wrestling newsletter, the blogs Partly Garbage and Torture Rack & Honey, and the zines You Have to Deal With Me Breathing and Flash Pin. As the publicist at Merge Records, Colette has written bios and press materials for some of the most acclaimed acts in indie rock, including the Mountain Goats, Destroyer, Superchunk, and The Clean.

Gil Carroll

Gil Carroll is a Winnipeg born musician, booking agent, concert promoter, composer, and community organizer. Carroll is a founding member and guitarist of Winnipeg based bands Living Hour and Palm Trees and is the co-founder of Real Love Winnipeg and First Date Touring. Carroll has booked tours for artists all over Canada, USA, and the UK. He has toured extensively in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe with Living Hour. He was the editor of Manitoba’s only music magazine, Stylus Magazine, and hosts the show Space Cadet on CKUW 95.9 FM. Gil was the 2018 recipient of the Kevin Walters Legacy Award presented by Manitoba Music.

Jörg Timp

Jörg Timp is the CEO and owner of German companies STARKULT PROMOTION and MAKE MY DAY RECORDS. Starkult Promotion has been managing PR campaigns for international and national labels and artists for approximately 30 years. MMD Records is the in-house label and specializes in artisanal music in the genres of Folk, Singer-Songwriter and Americana. Both companies have long-standing business relationships with various Canadian bands, artists and companies.

Natalie Dávila

Natalie V. Dávila has worked in music for over 15 years and is currently the Marketing Director at Polyvinyl Records. Her industry experience ranges from show promotion and festival programming to her current label work, where she focuses on A&R, project management, and creative marketing for album campaigns. She works with an eclectic roster of over 40 artists, including Alvvays, American Football, Jeff Rosenstock, Hum, of Montreal, Momma, Squirrel Flower, Xiu Xiu, and more, as well as an extensive catalog of over 450 releases. Before joining Polyvinyl, she was a Booking Coordinator for The Windish Agency in Chicago, Programming Director for 35 Denton Music Festival, and ran a legendary DIY house venue in North Texas while attending university.

Noah Fralick

Noah began his career in music by playing in bands in his local music scene in Hamilton, Ontario. This led to the formation of Huxley Management, an artist management company representing Juno- and Polaris-nominated artists Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Hey Rosetta!, Tim Baker, Basia Bulat, and Born Ruffians. He is the former marketing and project manager at acclaimed Canadian record label Paper Bag Records, in which he worked with artists across a diverse range of genres like The Rural Alberta Advantage, Sam Roberts, Tokyo Police Club, The Dears, and Tim Hecker. In 2020, he co-founded Wavy Haze Records with Born Ruffians, a Canadian imprint that seeks to disrupt the traditional label model with single-driven, artist-friendly deals. He splits his time between Toronto and Los Angeles.

Peggy Hogan

Peggy is the marketing and label manager at Next Door Records. Outside of office hours, she is a recording artist, DJ and music researcher with interests in music and the social, club and rave cultures, and platform capitalism’s effects on music.

Emilie Hanskamp

Emilie Hanskamp is a Montreal-born, Toronto-based music journalist. You can catch her as an on-air contributor on CTV and CBC, read her written work in the pages of The Toronto Star and Exclaim! among other publications, and follow along with her music discoveries, interviews and deep dives across social channels as Emilie The Aux.

At the intersection of her passion for storytelling and a lifelong obsession with music, she’s built a career dedicated to the discovery, analysis and celebration of art and industry along the indie to mainstream spectrum.