Follower growth from the start of the mandate to my departure — the first number partners used to judge whether the project was real.
RIVO / Emie Management · Artist development
Build an artist project into an audience system.
- Role
- Artist management and agency operations
- Period
- 2018–2021
- Business context
- Unknown artist with no releases or press
- Remit
- Identity, releases, partners and tour operations
- Decisions
- Press kit, campaign cadence, short-form habit, local network
- Verified outcome
- 1K→50K followers; 0→1M monthly listeners
- Evidence status
- Public context + redacted timeline + reference
In 2018, RIVO was an unknown artist from Brive, France: around 1,000 Instagram followers, no releases, no press. Partners — labels, radio, bookers, festival programmers — can't buy into what they can't read. Through Emie Management I built the operating system around him: identity and press kits, release campaigns, TikTok content behavior, bookings, contracts, local relationships, and the logistics of an Asia tour. By the time I left in 2021, the project had crossed 50,000 Instagram followers and 1M monthly listeners.
The numbers
What the project grew into.
From no releases at all to more than one million monthly listeners by the time I left in 2021.
Bookings, contracts, travel and content operations delivered without a label infrastructure.
A repeatable set of partner-facing and audience-facing tools built during the mandate.
The situation
A talented unknown, and partners who had nothing to read.
RIVO had the voice and the songs, but in 2018 he had nothing a professional could evaluate: roughly 1,000 Instagram followers, no released music, no press coverage, no visual identity. Every conversation that mattered — a radio station, a booker, a festival programmer, a potential label — started from zero, and most of them ended there, because there was no document, number, or track record to point at.
The mandate through Emie Management was to build everything at once: who the artist is on paper and on screen, how a song becomes a campaign, how an audience compounds week after week, and how contracts, bookings, and relationships hold together when momentum finally arrives. There was no playbook to inherit and no team to delegate to — the operating system had to be built while it was already running.
What I did
From invisible to operational, in four moves.
01 · Identity
Make the project readable before the numbers exist.
The first work was press kits, photo direction, visual rules, and release language — the material that lets a journalist, booker, or radio programmer understand the artist in five minutes. When there are no streams to show, the clarity of the story is the only asset, so I made it the strongest thing about the project.
02 · Release & tour operations
Turn songs into campaigns and bookings into logistics.
Each release became a coordinated campaign: assets, PR language, lyric-video context, contracts, radio outreach, bookings, and follow-up. The 2019 Asia tour was the stress test — booking coordination across cities, flight planning, contract splits, a content rhythm running alongside the shows, and post-tour follow-up to convert the momentum into lasting relationships.
03 · Audience behavior
Build the daily short-form habit before it was comfortable.
RIVO was reluctant around social content, so this part was as much coaching as strategy. I built the TikTok playbook — a daily content rhythm, older hits remixed into short-form audio, and release-story formats with countdowns and song context — until posting became a habit rather than a favor. That repeatable discovery behavior supported audience growth and remained part of the artist's routine after my mandate.
04 · Local structure
Anchor the project where it comes from.
Because RIVO came from Brive, the local ecosystem mattered: festival programmers, regional media, and public-authority connections. I built and maintained those relationships deliberately, helping the project secure early stages and local allies while creating a stronger base for later attention.
What it changed
An operating foundation the project kept using.
- Press, radio, and bookers could evaluate the project from a kit instead of a cold pitch, helping open early campaign and stage conversations.
- The audience compounded from roughly 1,000 Instagram followers to more than 50,000, and from no releases to over 1M monthly listeners by my departure — numbers partners could finally act on.
- The 2019 Asia tour proved the operation could handle international bookings, contracts, and logistics without a label's infrastructure behind it.
- Local relationships in Brive — festivals, media, public authorities — helped build a durable base for later opportunities.
- The daily short-form rhythm became a repeatable operating habit during the mandate. Later public success belongs to the artist and subsequent teams and is not attributed here.
Direct reference
In their own words.
“I’ve been constantly impressed with Henrique’s grace under pressure and his impeccable work ethic.”
Proof you can check
Public traces of the work.
Where this transfers
What this chapter proves beyond music.
- Zero-to-one audience building
- Release & campaign operations
- Short-form content systems
- Bookings & contracts
- International tour logistics
- Partner & press relations
Hiring next step
See how this work fits your brief.
The hiring brief shows where this experience creates the most value, with the boundaries and evidence useful to your decision.