Team — Initiative Pop

PROJECT MANAGER
Florian Sczesny is a freelancing songwriter, producer & music consultant with 10 years of professional experience, including five years as commercial songwriter for BMG Rights Management & several years of consulting work for pop rlp, the official state-funded competence center for pop music in Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany).
Prior to dedicating his life to making and supporting popular music, he worked as a full-time teacher (English, History, Didactics) & studied business economics.

PROJECT LEADER
Markus Graf is the executive chairman of the Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft (LAG) Rock & Pop Rheinland-Pfalz e.V. (pop rlp), which he founded in 1994 and is institutionally funded by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate since 2012. He dedicates his life to the support of artists and all other actors in the field of popular music culture, both on a political and operative level. He is therefore heavily involved in several honorary posts and committees, such as the International Lahnsteiner Bluesfestival, Bundesverband Popularmusik e.V., Beratungsnetzwerks gegen Rechtsextremismus, Rockland Radio and many more.

EDUCATOR
MENTAL HEALTH/COMMUNICATION
Since 2013 Franziska Lauter has been running her own practice in the middle of Berlin as a graduate psychologist. Her specialisation lies in the bearding of creatively working people, especially from the music industry.
She is a guest lecturer at the Berlin School Of Popular Arts in Musician Psychology and works as a consultant for different organisations such as Funk and various music labels.
Before that she worked as a full-time music producer and singer and toured around the world as part of many projects. In 2020 she co-founded the MiM Association which is concerned with mental health in the music industry.

EDUCATOR
MARKETING/COMMUNITY
Norman Fleischer is one head of Berlin-based creative communication agency SUPERUNKNOWN but also pop culture nerd by conviction, micro-influencing music enthusiast and a passionate critic of neo-liberal growth scenarios. While writing texts on a similarly fast level as ChatGPT, he also always keeps track of project management and administrative tasks within the agency. For many years, he has built up an international network as a music blogger and now primarily disseminates his opinions and recommendations via the regular mailout "This Mess Called Music" (https://messcalledmusic.com).

EDUCATOR
SELFMANAGEMENT/FUNDING/MUSIC BUSINESS
As musician Miu, Nina Graf successfully releases music and several albums. She has been running her own label for several years and advises musicians in their development as professional artists in many areas.
She passes on her knowledge to different educational institutions and also directly to artists. She campaigns for fair working conditions for musicians and more visibility for women in music.

EDUCATOR
PR/MANAGEMENT/TOURING
With the goal of discovering all facets of the music industry, Philipp Oppenhäuser has worked in booking, promotion and marketing for European festivals, well-known tour promoters, music export offices and showcases.
Living in Hamburg, he has been working in the international music industry for 10 years, but is still connected to his home Koblenz as part of the pop.rlp board. In 2019, he launched "Mechanik" together with Fritz Kröber. As a team they help solving problems in the current industry: mgmt _pr _ funfunfun

GUEST EDUCATOR
SUSTAINABILITY
Mona Steinhäußer spent 7 years in the Netherlands, where she studied Fashion (Maastricht Faculty of Arts) and Applied Arts (Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam). She identifies herself as a Creative Strategist and interdisciplinary artist. In her work, she explores the impacts of globalization and consumption on our understanding of values, aiming to promote a shift in consciousness towards sustainability in society. As a co-founder of Ikigo Studios GmbH (2020), she introduced a new form of circular economy focusing on sustainable fashion in the commercial market. Currently, the artist focus is on her ‘Sustainability Gym’ where she examines the role of artistic attitude in the economic system change and advocates for training a values-based development.

MARKETING
Carolina has been studying music management at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken since 2017. During her studies she started first steps in networking directly in the centre of the Greater Region. In 2020 she was part of the planning team of the Saarklang Festival and worked together with musicians from France, Germany und Luxembourg.
Since 2021, she has been working with pop rlp on various projects and was project assistant for the first round of Initiative Pop. After her bachelor's degree in 2022, she founded an agency and carried out various projects together with partners and clients.
Since 2023 she is an integral part of pop rlp and responsible for funding programs in Rhineland-Palatinate, networking, marketing and promotion.

the team