Matthew Maxwell

UCLA, Anderson School of Management

“A dreamer driven by faith, family, and music; a lover of imagination, community, and hope.”

Hometown: Mitchellville, Maryland

Fun Fact About Yourself: I learned singing through voice impressions, so I used to have a pretty good Trey Songz impersonation.

Undergraduate School and Major: Harvard University, B.A. in Economics; Berklee College of Music, M.M. in Music Production and Technology

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Family First Music Group, Founder; SoundExchange, Senior Analyst in Business Development

UCLA Anderson is founded on the Three Pillars: Share Success, Think Fearlessly, and Drive Change. Which pillar resonates most with you and why? That’s a pretty tough question. If I have to pick one, it is Think Fearlessly because it’s an engine for Share Success and Drive Change. In my experience, it has been fear that limits us from sharing success with others. For example, there is the fear of being overlooked, being taken advantage of, or being devalued. In order to drive change, one must be able to choose faith over fear and to allow oneself to think beyond the bounds of what has been done, in favor of what should be done.

When I think of leaders I admire, it’s either the absence of fear or, even more, the active decision to think and act beyond fear, that has led to incredible moments of personal growth and societal transformation.

What makes Los Angeles such a great place to earn an MBA? While I love the East Coast and have lived in several cities throughout the Northeast, Los Angeles was a no-brainer for me. L.A. feels like the ideal balance of creativity, business, entertainment, and wellness. As a musician, so much of my creative collaborators are here or will move out here soon. Even outside of individuals I know, there’s been a strong spirit of collaboration among people I’ve met in the city.

My focus is on creative entrepreneurship. There’s a vibrant startup culture and it’s easier to meet people with an entertainment focus within tech, but it comes across more balanced, given how important wellness is to the region. And it’s really hard to beat the weather here, particularly such low humidity; constant sunshine is a perpetual, level-setting agent that reminds me to enjoy the journey and trust the process.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of UCLA Anderson’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? For me, it was the startup environment at the Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. The center provides many entrepreneurial fellowships and accelerator programming for early ventures. I came to business school to scale my business, Family First Music Group, particularly focusing on building tech tools for the independent creator economy to better manage their businesses and to protect and monetize their content. I believe I have the space and resources to do that at Anderson. In terms of importance, I realized that I’m at my best when building things freely as a founder, so coming to an institution that would support that and help me to hone my skills and areas of improvement mattered to me. Finally, I’ve had a fairly unique journey, which revealed to me how high some of the mountains creatives and their teams have to climb are, especially when they lack finances or personnel, so being able to support those teams via the startup community at Anderson is an incredible blessing.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at UCLA Anderson? Another tough question. A part of me wants to mention something like the Entrepreneurship Club, Tech Club, or something like joining cultural and identity groups and taking trips with classmates. Honestly, I’m really excited about playing basketball. It has been a while since I’ve had access to so many courts to hoop and to so many people that are into regular, organized ball. I just have to finish nursing a knee injury… But once that’s done, #ballislife.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: A recent career and familial accomplishment that actually connects to my MBA goals is bringing resolution to a decades-long music copyright and royalty issue for my family. Within the next year or so, we will have completed a 30-year journey of reclaiming royalties owed to my grandmother (royalties my grandfather didn’t even receive during his final years of life, but should’ve). It’s humbling to be a part of something that spans generations and to have an opportunity to bring closure to an area that intersects two of my core identities, family and music.

What do you hope to do after graduation (at this point)? Honestly, I want to live to the fullest extent as a creative and entrepreneur. At this point, the plan is to have an active career as an independent artist, producer, songwriter, label head, and overall performer. Simultaneously, I hope to have created some powerful tech tools that help the “95” of creatives scale their businesses. And if I’m able to live in this intersection fully after graduation… sheesh, look out, world, because it’s on!!!

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into UCLA Anderson’s MBA program? I’d recommend a lot of introspection and communal reflection to know your “why” for business school and “why” Anderson. So much of education and development rhetoric in general is about ‘maximizing’ the opportunities presented and taking that “next step.” But, for me, knowing where to go (and even whether to go to business school at all) was more about knowing myself and what I needed at this stage in my career. During the application process, having a clear why helped me tremendously for the essays and interviews. It meant that my application was simply a verbal reflection of what I am instead of me trying to build a narrative or reaching for something that doesn’t match my ethos and experiences.

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