In February of 2023, after a year-long search, NAMM’s Executive Committee and CEO Search Committee announced music education advocate and MI vet John Mlynczak as the new president and CEO of NAMM, succeeding longtime leader Joe Lamond.
Mlynczak brings an impressive professional background to his new position, having worked in music retail, education, and technology industries. Most recently serving as the VP of Music Education & Technology for Hal Leonard, he’s also the immediate past president of Technology in Music Education (TI:ME), and has previously worked as the director of education at PreSonus Audio, managing director of Noteflight, advocacy chair of the Massachusetts Music Educators Association, and was on the NAfME Advocacy Leadership Force, among many other achievements. Like I say – impressive, no?
MMR recently had the chance to chat with Mlynczak on his fourth day in his new role with NAMM to learn more about his life in music, his thoughts on the state of NAMM and the MI industry, and plans for the future.
You’ve worked in music education, publishing, pro audio, et cetera. Of all the many roles that you’ve had in so many aspects of the industry, what do you feel has best prepared you in your new position as the CEO and president of NAMM?
That’s a great question, and honestly the answer is: all of them – and that’s not even a cop-out. Along with what you referenced, I also worked at Mars Music for three years.
Oh, you did? Well, then you’ve got that base covered as well!
Yeah, I’ve done the retail thing. Apparently if you hang out at a music store long enough, they just put you to work [laughs]. Because I was that kid that loved music so much, I was always there.
That’s a really cool progression, to have started out as a kid who would just like hang out in the music store, ends up working there, and now here you are president of the industry’s largest organization. That’s amazing.
It really is. And it hasn’t fully like hit me yet, but it will soon enough. Because I do still feel like that kid in the music store and, in fact, maybe I should never lose that. It’s probably good to always have.
The thing about working all those multiple jobs is you get a broad perspective of the entire chain of the industry – how all these roles fit together, and that we are an industry that all depends on each other and we all have a very important role in music making. Working at the music store, the first time we did inventory and we worked all night and had the little inventory guns, and we had to scan and count everything and all the fun stuff you do, you’re like, “Wow, I had no idea what goes into it.”
Then working at an audio manufacturer and I’m sourcing new products and counting the fraction of the cents of a polybag of a cable from China, in a bundled product and working on quantity. Again: “Wow, all this goes into that. I had no idea.” Then you get into publishing and how much goes into that side of the industry, and then technology, and how much effort and thought goes into the software. Everything helps to give you incredible perspective. And I’ve been lucky to have enough jobs in the industry that I know that there’s always something you don’t know, there’s always more to learn. And understanding that our NAMM members collectively have that knowledge and bring that to the table, I think is really helpful.
Speaking specifically to NAMM,, to what degree were you involved with the organization? Obviously you’ve been at NAMM Shows and were a member. What did NAMM represent for you?
Well I was, you know, teaching music, I was gigging ‘till 2:00 AM on a Thursday and then coming into work, carpool, at my school on Friday morning – doing the whole thing. Then I got in the industry and had all these experiences, and it was my first NAMM Show where I completely was blown away. I’ve experienced the cycle of the NAMM Show and it’s what made my industry jobs make sense.
When was your first NAMM Show? I think people would be interested.
It would’ve been January of 2013 and it was three weeks in to my job at PreSonus. Rick Naqvi said, “You gotta book a flight to L.A. and go to NAMM.” And I said, “What’s NAMM?” And three weeks later I was there and I was absolutely blown away. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing in that job yet because it was a new division. It was PreSonus saying, “Create an education division.” And, man, when we got to NAMM, the people you met, the other industries you got to see, it all made sense. You could not have gotten a better four-day education about the industry than that. Then I went to the Fly-in every year and worked very closely with the Fly-in team. I was advocacy chair for the states I was in, so I was working with the NAMM Foundation and the NAMM team that does the Fly-in very closely on multiple things for years. I am someone that absolutely loves NAMM and loves the people.
Even prior to COVID, for a while now there have been those who felt, “Oh, what’s the point of trade shows, in general, or organizations like NAMM at this point in time? This is all kind of anachronistic.” For some, the pandemic accelerated that perception. What’s your take on the evolving nature of trade shows and the like?
I’ll try to unpack this in order. Let’s talk about NAMM first, and I’ll talk about gatherings and trade shows in general. NAMM has always evolved for our members. Once I found out I got this job, the first thing I did is say, “Give me every piece of history you could possibly get your hands on tomorrow.” And they did. They scanned hundreds of pages of documents, past music trades, magazines, historical writings, board notes. It’s important to me to understand that we’ve always evolved. And you’re right. The pandemic, for almost every area of industry and life, uncovered more issues than it created, right? It just sort of unveiled things that were already brewing.
So, the size of the NAMM Show is one of them, but I don’t necessarily think the purpose was ever questioned. Yes, you can launch a product on YouTube and you could do that in 2010, but what we’ve seen and what we saw with 10 years of NAMM Show growth to the massive Show in 2020 was that there are three important pillars to every gathering. Yes, there are exhibits, new products, gear “nerd out” sections, but education and networking are just as important. And when you ask people why NAMM was amazing when they leave, it’s the connections they make, it’s things they saw, it’s what they learned. And, yeah, it’s new products they saw, but that’s not the sole purpose of the show. It’s an important piece of a larger picture, and NAMM’s always kept that. And I’m convinced that’s why the NAMM gatherings during the pandemic have felt strong, though not in size, and we’re continuing to evolve and really understand what our members want.
April’s Show felt great. Yeah, if you look at attendance numbers of April ‘23 compared to January 2020, very different numbers. But what we’re hearing about the impact is honestly the same, which is amazing. And you think about a really, really big gathering, one human being, whether they’re a retailer, a manufacturer exhibiting on the floor, a guest, an artist, an educator, a college student, a presenter, a panelist – you could go on and on through all the personas we have – that one human being, at a show with 100,000 people, they might experience 2% of it and get immense value. A show at 50,000 people, they might experience 4% of it and get immense value. The important thing is that every human being that leaves a NAMM Show got the value they need. And that’s what happened in April. And so we stay focused on quality. We stay focused on the balance of programming to ensure that every human being there has the right balance of what they need.
We’re really focused on who’s there, what folks are getting out of the Show. There are plenty of exhibitors that are launching new products and telling us they had an amazing opportunity there, right? But it’s also important to realize that if you don’t have something new, it doesn’t mean you’re not there. Because who we’re seeing attending – college students, new folks in the industry – they need to see the iconic brands just as much as anyone else. So, I think it’s really about the mix of people. And that’s where we’re focused on. Now, yes, we want the Show to grow. We want a large gathering, and we have a large gathering. Even the size we were in April, we were the world’s largest gathering of the music products industry. Are we laser-focused on a number of 115,000 people? No, we’re laser-focused on quality and understanding the mix, the balance of programming, of exhibitors, of networking, of education events, of partners, of artists, of all the opportunities that happen. And that balance has to stay. That’s what makes NAMM magical
Now, I will say, the gravitational pull of people wanting to come back in January is really strong. We haven’t opened registration yet, but we are already hearing, “I can’t wait to come back in January!”
I heard that almost without exception. I think that for a lot of people, it’s so baked into their internal annual calendar: “Okay, in January I go to Anaheim and I do the NAMM thing.” Having that schedule disrupted the past few years confused things further than COVID already had.
Yeah, we have a joke: “We did winter in the summer,” a June “winter Show,” right? You know, NAMM made a commitment during the pandemic to continue bringing the industry together, but based on California stay-at-home orders and all the factors and what the Anaheim Convention Center could do, based on when things opened up, June and April just sort of fell out of contention due to a lot of different factors.
But you just hit it. The cycle of the industry, of all the things that got disrupted, right? I’ve lived 10 years in the music industry at two different companies and probably five different roles, living my life off, “Okay, January, first of the year, who am I going to meet? Who are our biggest partners? What are our new products?” Even preparing to go to Anaheim forces you to evaluate your goals, your business, your priorities. And you go in, and then out of the energy of the show, it’s three months of follow-ups, prioritizing what projects you’re going to do, what your goals are, and then you execute all year. And then by the time January goes around, it’s time to do it again. That’s the cycle of the entire industry. And I would argue, even if anyone would decide not to come to Anaheim in January, I’d be willing to bet that their business still runs on that cycle. Because when the majority of the industry thinks in that cycle and works in that cycle, that’s why we all work together. Back to all the roles I’ve had, right? Like, all these pieces of the industry fit together for a greater good. And I’m going to make a cheesy music reference here, but when we’re all playing in rhythm together, we’re all jamming together, we’re all working together much better. And that rhythm is January. NAMM set that years ago. And I even understand strategically that’s one of the reasons NAMM put their show in January, because they heard from members that that rhythm, that cycle of the industry is key.
And even people that were not at the NAMM Show in April were launching new products online during the same exact week of the NAMM Show. Now, they will remain nameless, but we know it and we see it. And you know what? That’s our value. And that’s exactly what we do. We bring the history together and it has a lot of value. I’m not really looking at the attendance numbers of 2020 as much as I’m looking at the value we’ll give our members in 2024, and ‘25, and ‘26, and beyond.
I think that makes good sense.
I can show you some other industries, right? Because you had a good question there, too, about people who love to say, “ Well, other trade shows…” You know, we’ve looked carefully at other industries. Some data points that we’ve seen shows – trade show-only gatherings, the ones that were able to stay on cycle, have rebounded or are rebounding much faster than shows that were forced to go off cycle. That’s number one. So, we know the cycle for every industry matters. The handful of shows of organizations or trade show organizations in all industries that have failed or folded, they all have one thing in common: they were poorly managed and they did not have enough financial resources to manage their show in hard times. They all had management issues. I’m not trying to be rude to other organizations.
No, no. It’s a good point. I think that speaks to how nimble NAMM has proven itself to be. I’ve been covering MI for 22 years, and there was the economic upheaval in 2008, obviously COVID more recently, and the big thing when I first started at MMR was, “Oh, God! The big boxes are going to destroy every mom-and-pop retailer.” And it’s like, “Well, maybe there are paths to ensure it won’t be quite that dire.” NAMM has been a consistent guiding light throughout all of it, and I’m glad to hear everything that you’re saying. It all speaks to the continued relevance of the organization.
A hundred percent. I’ve literally read the board notes of every board meeting in the past 30 years. And the comments, the minutes that come out of them… it’s fascinating. Because you’re right: there’s always something that’s going to kill retail. Whether it’s a catalog, or an 800 number, or online sales, or eBay. It doesn’t matter. There’s always something, and it still hasn’t happened. NAMM is here to understand what’s worked in the past, what hasn’t, to evolve, to support members. And that’s something I’m really learning a lot, too. Like, the NAMM Show, it’s obviously the biggest piece of what NAMM does, but I’ll tell you, man, in four days of officially being CEO and sitting at this desk, I’m amazed at how many things fly by this desk that we do for members on a daily basis, whether it’s connecting this person with that, or helping them with a local issue, or a lot of international trade, environmental, whatever it is. We are serving our members all day long.
That’s not as visible, but that’s a big part of what we do. So, what’s interesting to me is we heard from so many that April was such a great show, and I want to know why. Why was it a great show? We’re doing surveys. We’re reading the stories around it, the press coverage. But again, it’s about the combination of people. And so where my head’s at now is I want to put some more data points in place, so we as an organization really know what is working, what’s kind of working, what’s not working. And that could look like, maybe some more questions when you register so we better understand, like, are you an educator or do you do sound at your church over the weekend, and you teach lessons, and you also work in a music store, or whatever – really understanding the people at our Show, what they’re attending, getting their surveys, really using that data, are we serving our members, right? So, that’s going to be super important.
And once we have the data to identify what’s working, we pour gasoline on those fires. Before we start changing and taking away things from members, I’m really focused on what’s working, and asking, “How can we accelerate those connections that are valuable for folks?” We start there before we start changing things because it’s really easy to change something that could be working and you just don’t know it’s working. So, that’s really what I’m focused on. And, yes, once we identify what’s working and we accelerate those [initiatives], then we look at making adjustments. But again, NAMM’s job isn’t to force the industry together in January. It’s to serve the industry. The industry wants to be together. They want to network, and we provide that.
Obviously, a lot of people knew you to some extent prior to the announcement, but for those who didn’t or who read the press release when it came out, and are just like, “Okay, I still don’t really know this guy,” what would you like those folks to know about you that they might not know? Basically, any MMR reader who’s like, “John who? What’s going on?”
Yeah, it’s pronounced “Muh-lin-zak” [laughs]. That’s always the first question!
Believe me, growing up as “Christian Wissmuller” in Boston I can relate.
Oh, I’m sure! I’m glad you asked this question, though. Truly, music changed – we could argue saved – crafted, focused my entire life, all the way through childhood into nowadays. I don’t forget that. And I recognize the power music has on individuals. I recognize all the pieces that every part of our industry plays to get to that end individual. And I was that band student. I was that kid in music class that probably wouldn’t have had friends unless all the marching band people sat together at lunch. It goes back to that. So, I care deeply about people and about changing lives through music. And I don’t forget about any of that. And as a leader, you have to keep your eye on that prize. As an educator, I was just absolutely steadfast on student outcomes. Internal politics, faculty meetings, assessments, data, standardized testing, rules, scheduling – all that stuff that happens in schools that make it difficult to focus on students, never really fazed me because it was about student outcomes.
And if you think about that, in our industry, it’s about music-maker outcomes, right?
Sure.
And you keep your eye on that prize, I think it helps bring clarity to every issue that comes across this desk. Why does our industry gather in January? It’s about the music makers. A NAMM member wants to talk about something. There’s an issue, whatever it is, good, bad, or ugly. Yes, this person’s concerned. But it all comes down to finding a way because customers can’t make music or they can’t promote music-making in a certain way. So, it’s really important, I think, to keep your eye on the end goal, which is music makers. And in a lot of ways, I think it helps evolve what NAMM does. Because, yes, our members are retailers and manufacturers, but all of our members are focused on customers making music. So, NAMM’s focus is also customers making music. And the closer we are to those folks, and through the work of the Foundation, and through the work NAMM does in public policy and advocacy, we stay close to that. We can better serve our members if we understand who they’re serving at the same time. So, I’m just really laser-focused on that.
Growing up, my dad was one of those people, if something breaks in the house, he’d have 17 parts on the ground taking the thing apart before he’d ever try to figure it out. Whether it’s a vacuum cleaner, or a car, or refrigerator is not working. He was gonna start to rip things apart. I think a lot of people have that dad.
Absolutely.
And I saw a lot of things not go back together the same way. There was always a joke of “There’s always a leftover part,” and I think about that a lot. I’m definitely a fixer and a tinkerer, and I like knowing how things work, but I am very careful not to break anything. And I think it comes from growing up that way. I ask a lot of questions: “Tell me how this works. Why do we do it this way?” I ask questions because I’m really, really interested in not breaking something that’s working. I think, for a change-maker and a evolver, that helps me in this role because NAMM needs to evolve. NAMM will evolve. But I’m not going do that by taking away something before I truly understand exactly the value, right? Because I’m so hesitant to break anything that’s working.
I think that’s great. The idea of being sort of mindful of the need for change when appropriate and staying ahead of the curve, being forward-thinking, while not just changing things that have worked in the past strictly for the sake of changing.
Dude, a hundred percent. That’s exactly it. The other thing to remember is that the NAMM staff, the directors, the department leaders, the executive committee, the board – this is not “The John Mlynczak Show,” just as it was never just “The Joe Lamond Show,” right? Or the Larry Linkin Show or the Bill Gard Show. This is an organization that is deeply, deeply entrenched into members. We are the industry. And so, yes, there’s a leadership change that happened, but there’s also a ton of stability around this organization that’s not changing. And I need to learn from that. Everyone knows that NAMM needs to evolve and change. So, I’m not resisting it. I’m just methodically, carefully approaching it. The last thing we need to do is move 20 feet to the left, and the industry bounces back in January, and all of a sudden, we’re not there. We’ve got to be careful about this.
I didn’t have any doubts based on what I knew about you beforehand, but just in the course of this conversation, I would have to say NAMM picked the right guy for the job.
Well, that means a lot. Thanks!
Is there anything else you’d like to add? Anything you’d like our readers to know?
I could not imagine a larger stress test for our industry than a worldwide pandemic that says, “Gathering together and moving air is unsafe and could kill you.” There’s no bigger test. I mean, you could go back to World War I and World War II, when our members couldn’t make instruments because they were forced to make bombs, right? That was a pretty big test. But I can’t imagine a bigger test than saying that you can’t even stand next to each other, much less move air and play music. And you look at what happened when people were at home. They wanted to learn music. I mean, mathematically speaking, every American has to have seven ukuleles in their closet. There’s no other way we can justify the sales.
There are a lot of positive signs. So, if we just follow history, we’re in a good place. That doesn’t mean we’re going to sit back and just assume that’s going to happen, because it tends to happen because we all come together.
So, it’s easy to get caught up in like, “Oh, we’re down from ‘21 when all these instruments were sold.” Look at the past 10 years. We’re still up from where we would have been. Music marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Reverb – yes, these are coming up. And I know that no retailer wants people to exchange used instruments. They want them to buy new instruments. I understand that, for sure. But the bustling nature of marketplaces and the bustling exchange of musical instruments shows that people still want to make music. If those instruments were not being exchanged in marketplaces and they were gathering dust under beds and in closets, I’d be a lot more concerned. I think there are a lot of positive things that are showing that we’re going to rebound strong. NAMM just has to evolve and be there for our members to capitalize on all the opportunities that are out there now.
