Martin Mills

Martin Mills (born 12 May 1949) is the founder and chairman of the Beggars Group.

Early life Mills grew up near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and comes from an "upper-middle-class English family". His father worked as a civil servant and his mother was a teacher and headmistress. Mills attended Magdalen College School and Oriel College, Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, politics and economics, graduating in 1970.

After graduating from university, Mills worked for the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, writing reports on abortion law reformation and processing abortion statistics; however, the experience left him wanting "to do something completely different".

Beggars Group

The record store was opened initially to re-sell records that he and a friend, Nick Austin, had collected for a mobile disco. The disco, and then the company, was named after the Rolling Stones' album Beggars Banquet. Mills and Austin had seen an opportunity for a record shop that sold both new and second-hand records. Beggars Banquet soon became a six-shop chain in London, arriving shortly before punk broke through; "It turned what we did upside down. We all started being interested in a completely different style of music. The kind of concerts we had been promoting suddenly became completely irrelevant, so we started promoting punk gigs instead. It was an amazing, incredibly exciting sea change."

In the radio show he was quoted as saying that The whole point [of independent music publishing] is not giving people what they want but what they are going to want. and the US (A2IM), and the Worldwide Independent Network.

He also led the establishment of Merlin in 2008, the independents’ rights licensing body, which has distributed well over $2 billion to members since launch, and today counts 850 members from 63 countries.

He has remained active in other music industry organisations, through his participation in the government’s Music Industry Forum, the Music Business Forum, being on the board of UK Music, and both as a director of PPL and VPL, the industry’s rights licensing bodies. In addition, he was called by the US Senate to Washington in 2012 to be a witness in the hearing on the proposed purchase of EMI Records by Universal Music.

He was awarded an MBE in the 2008 New Year Honours list, as well as outstanding contribution awards from Music Week, Billboard, the Radio Academy, the Featured Artists Coalition, IMPALA, Canadian Music Week, The Music Producers’ Guild, A2IM, Billboard, and the 'Pioneer Award' at the AIM Awards. A Beggars Group sale of their stake in Spotify in 2019 earned Mills £8 million.

As of 2023, the labels that comprise the Beggars Group are 4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade Records, XL Recordings and Young.

Awards and accolades 1998: The Strat award, Music Week 2008: Honoured by The Queen with an MBE 2011: Industry Champion Award at the inaugural Artist & Manager Awards 2011: The Guardian – Inaugural Music Power 100 list 2011: Impala Outstanding Contribution Award 2012: Inaugural Lifetime Achievement award by A2IM 2012: Music Producers Guild Outstanding Contribution to UK Music Award 2013: Billboard - Industry Icon award 2013: Billboard - Power 100 2014: The Inaugural Global Impact Award at Canadian Music Week 2014: Pioneer Award at the AIM Independent Music Awards 2014: Billboard - International Power Player 2014: Billboard - Power 100 2015: Billboard - Power 100 2016: Billboard - Power 100 2017: Billboard - Power 100 2017: Billboard - Indie Power Player 2018: Billboard - Indie Power Player 2018: Variety International Music Leader 2019: Billboard - Power 100 2019: Billboard - Indie Power Player 2019: Variety - International Music Leader 2020: Billboard - Indie Power Player 2020: Billboard - Power 100 2021: Billboard - Indie Power Player 2022: Billboard - Indie Power Player 2022: Billboard - Power List 2022: Variety - Variety 500 2023: Billboard - Power 100 2024: Billboard - Indie Power Player 2025: Billboard - Global Power Player

Commentary In June 2013, Mills was described in a BBC Radio 4 portrait as looking "remarkably unremarkable" but being "like a wise old fisherman watching minnows waiting to catch a really big fish".