Christian Ulf-Hansen

Music Industry Professional

Christian Ulf-Hansen is half English, quarter Danish and quarter Russian, with a very Danish sounding name, but lives in England…. He started in the Music Business in London in 1981 at 19… Initially worked his way up the ranks at PRS (Performing Right Society, now PRS for Music) to become Membership Representative and the main point of contact for songwriters and publishers and to the rest of the music business. During this time Christian got to know nearly every major songwriter, publisher, manager, producer and A&R person, whilst gaining a reputation for discovering and nurturing new talent and helping them go forward in their careers, whilst remaining true to the artistic vision of the creatives around him. He also grew business worldwide, building his international reputation as a deal maker, whilst signing some of the biggest international writers and artists in the world.

In 1992 Christian was headhunted by the US organization BMI, to take a pan-European role, which he did for 8 years, continuing the development theme and helping break Lisa Loeb, Ron Sexsmith and many European acts and several of the biggest new songwriters of the 90’s. He A&R'd the successful Planet Stereo Radio promotion campaigns, brokered many deals in records and publishing and found songs for some of the biggest albums of the decade, including a 30M + seller. Travelling incessantly around the world and spending 6 weeks+ a year in the US, gave him a unique position on the global business and preparing him for his next step.

In 2002, Christian decided to go out on his own into Management/consultancy, under the Plan C Management umbrella, with his initial client, Teitur, and several writers and producers. In 2002 he signed Teitur to a major worldwide record deal with Universal Records in the US, negotiated with Doug Morris, at the time the biggest music exec in the world. Making the album in Spain and LA and then touring Teitur in the US incessantly, Christian broke him the old fashioned way, doing over 400 gigs in the US and subsequently going indie to drive him to Gold status (X3) in Scandinavia, along with 2 Danish Grammies. Teitur has also since written and produced the French superstar Nolwenn and German star Judith Holofernes, had songs recorded by Seal, Mina, Emilie Simon, Buika, Mandy Patinkin and many more. Christian negotiated and licensed an album by Teitur and Nico Muhly to Nonesuch/Warner worldwide and got one of the songs in Paolo Sorrentino’s TV series The New Pope; Teitur has gradually become successful in many different formats from indie to Jazz and Classical and was recognised in 2022 with a Knighthood from the Danish Queen Margarethe, in recognition of his music.

Christian developed the career of and got deals for monster writer Jamie Hartman who went on to write “Human” for Rag N Bone Man and others including Backstreet Boys/Celeste/Lewis Capaldi and won many awards including Brits etc, and US based writer Marc Nelkin (Kesha/Cher), whilst also helping with Corinne Bailey Rae’s development career and getting 3 songs on her 4 million + selling debut album.

During this time Christian expanded his A&R role in his artists albums, and for other labels too, making and marketing classic sounding albums, which have gone on to do well in the Film and TV sync world, recouping their investment many times over, being driven by Christian’s view of a worldwide market. He has become experienced at building teams around acts and labels in many key territories. Christian also co-managed a 5X US Grammy winning act for 3 years, re-negotiating all of their deals, changing the way they recorded albums to make them more profitable, and drove up the value of their live shows (including their biggest ever gross), their first tour of China and helping source and negotiate their biggest sync fee of their career. He developed Tobias Fröberg, from Sweden, who became an advertiser’s dream artist with a huge number of TV sync placements and has since become a well respected producer. Recently, Christian helped Tobias develop the actress Alba August as an artist and brokered and negotiated a label deal for her and Tobias with Universal worldwide. He managed Folk superstar Kathryn Williams for 18 months, doing a series of firsts: her first US record deal/US tour/Korean deal/Danish tour, whilst building a new team around her records in the UK. He also helped develop the London based Danish musician/producer/writers team The Suppliers, who worked with Tinchy Stryder, KT Tunstall, Adele etc and ran their development label Squat Sound, to which they signed and recorded 2 acts, one moving on to Sony Records and another to Virgin/EMI. His client Nikolaj Torp Larsen co-produced and co-wrote the No.1 and No.2 Albums by The Specials, has had songs on No.1 albums by Jack Savoretti, has scored several films and Christian signed Nikolaj to a major publishing deal with BMG worldwide. Christian has expanded his field of operation to include Film and TV production; producing live music TV specials, making an animated TV pilot and selling the format to a US production company, co-producing an interactive film and Music Supervision. He developed and co-owns hybrid sync/label company Halogen Media, securing 14 major TV and Film syncs in the US and UK on one album, and has recently started work on building a couple of new music libraries.

Christian collaborates with other business partners as consultants, successfully helping re-launch musician’s careers, A&Ring records, breaking new artists, shopping and negotiating deals and building teams around releases on a global scale. He is a founder member of the annual MiCannes conference, and is on the committee and board of this growing international event. In 2024 he negotiated the deal for Hattie and Charley Webb to be part of David Gilmour’s world tour as part of his band, performing to 500K people and is helping them spin off into a female supergroup of
singers…

In between everything else, Christian is also an extreme sports athlete, having represented Great Britain over the years in Europe and and World Championships in Husky Racing, Sprint Triathlon & Duathlon, Cross Triathlon and Duathlon and is currently world ranked top 20 in his age group.