Beyoncé rocketed to musical fame throughout the 2000s with a string of successful hits, but who was or is her manager?
Beyoncé has had several managers during her prestigious career. Firstly, she was managed by her father, Matthew Knowles. Then, it was Lee Anne Callahan-Longo, who she was with for several years. Since 2015, Beyoncé has been managed by Steve Pamon.
Read on to learn more about Beyoncé and the incredible talent she’s worked with.
Managed To Success
Beyoncé first started storming the stage as far back as 1997. When she was just a teenager, Beyoncé began exploring her vocal abilities in earnest. The Houston native was born to African American and Louisiana Creole parents, who fully nurtured her musical ability.
In fact, this nurture would go far beyond simple encouragement and enablement. Her father, Matthew Knowles, would become her first official manager. In 1995, he retired from his previous job as a Xerox salesman to manage his daughter full time.
However, it wasn’t just Beyoncé that he managed. At the time, she was part of a fledgling trio called Destiny’s Child. This was a three-part girl group that had seen some success on talent shows, and with local performances.
In late 1995, they were lucky enough to secure a deal with a record label, Grass Roots Entertainment. It would be just a year later that they’d climbed the ladder, signing agreements with Sony Music, then Columbia Records.
Throughout this journey, it was Matthew Knowles who managed them. He certainly did a brilliant job, as by 2020 Beyoncé would be known worldwide. She had made her mark as one of the most iconic artists of all time and was deeply influential. She had an incredible net worth of almost half a billion dollars.
Although, it wasn’t just Matthew Knowles who would come to manage ‘Queen B’. In 2011, Beyoncé announced that she would be professionally splitting from her father. There was an article published in March of that year that explores this.
In the article, Matthew is quoted as saying, “Business is business and family is family. It should come as no surprise that at 29 years old, almost 30, she wants to have more control of her business.” The split was reportedly mutual and completed on friendly terms.
The Queen
Shortly after her split with her father, Beyoncé transitioned to a new manager. Lee Anne Callahan-Longo worked at the head of Beyoncé’s talent management company, Parkwood Entertainment.
However, after just five years with Callahan-Longo, Beyoncé had made more changes to her structure. In a reported attempt to broaden her business interests, she shook up her entire company. She ‘ditched’ her old team, and hired an entirely new group.
The key addition to this new organizational structure was her manager, Steve Pamon. As of December 2015, he’s served as the COO for Parkwood Entertainment. In that time, he’s directly managed both Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z.
Steven Pamon himself is a very accomplished businessman. His sparkling LinkedIn profile details history with the New York Road Runners, JPMorgan Chase, the NFL, HBO, and Time Warner. It’s no surprise that he’s paid off in dividends where Beyoncés business operations are concerned.
One Twitter post from 2019 celebrated Pamon’s expertise. In the month of April in 2016, he drove Beyoncé’s operations, scoring deals with Adidas and Netflix, and successfully launching a full studio album. These achievements were all secured within weeks of one another.
The release of the studio album, Lemonade, was critically acclaimed and praised internationally. Shortly after its release, Pamon was on stage receiving a Peabody Award for the album, and giving a speech. The Peabody Award honors powerful, invigorating and enlightening stories from entertainment and media.
You can watch Pamon’s speech in the video below.
Pamon and Beyoncé made such a successful pairing that in 2019 they were named ‘Executives Of The Year” by Billboard. The successful artist had long since established herself at the top of the food chain, but with Pamon she was unstoppable.
In a 2019 article, Beyoncé explained why they were so successful together. She said, “I chose Steve as my COO because we share a similar philosophy about business. You don’t have to be an a***ole to get things done. It was important that I found someone with good character as a human being.”