Christian Ulf-Hansen

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 the age of 19…

Initially worked his way up the ranks at PRS (Performing Right Society) 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, but remaining true to the artistic vision of the creative’s 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 records 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/Publishing and consultancy, under the Plan C Management umbrella, with his initial client, Teitur, and several writers and producers, who all became successful internationally. In July 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 etc. Christian negotiated and licensed an album by Teitur and Nico Muhly to Nonesuch/Warner worldwide; which they also performed as a sold out show at the 1400 capacity Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, one of the world's greatest venues. Teitur was recognised in 2022 with a Knighthood from the Danish Queen Margarethe, in recognition of his music, the youngest ever to receive this. Teitur has recently become in demand as an artist, writer and producer in multiple formats, including Jazz, Folk, indie and contemporary classical.

Christian has developed from early in their careers and got deals for writer/artist Jamie Hartman (Ben’s Brother/Will Young/Jason Mraz) who went on to write "Human" for Rag ‘N Bone Man and several other worldwide number 1’s 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 brokering deals and licensing acts around the world and 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 Froberg, 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 and multiple Swedish Grammi nominations . 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; she currently has 300k listeners on Spotify and they have 2 songs in one of the biggest non-english films of 2024. He managed Folk superstar Kathryn Williams for 18 months, doing a series of firsts: her first US record deal, US tour, Korean deal and 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. Christian then developed Nikolaj Torp Larsen from The Suppliers and Nikolaj co-produced and co-wrote the first No.1 Album by The Specials, producing the follow up, which went to number 2, and has had songs on the No.1 album by Jack Savoretti and Christian signed Nikolaj to a major deal with BMG worldwide.

Christian’s field of operation includes multiple publishing companies in the UK, Europe and Australasia, and some Film and TV production, including 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 co-owns hybrid sync/label company Halogen Media, securing 14 major TV and Film syncs in the US and UK, and has recently been building a couple of new music libraries. In 2023, Christian and four associates started the MiCannes conference in Cannes, France; a boutique, forward thinking networking event for International entertainment professionals, now established in June.

Christian collaborates with other business partners as consultants, successfully helping re-launch musician’s careers, A&R’ing records, breaking new artists, shopping and negotiating deals and building teams around releases on a global scale. He is widely considered to be an expert on music publishing, and also on developing and leveraging independent companies to become successful and build catalogues, and has negotiated or brokered multiple deals in many territories, in a wide range of entertainment areas.