About

Ruth Daniel is a multi-award winning CEO and Artistic Director of international NGO, In Place of War, an organisation working with music, art and creativity in places of armed conflict, social injustice and affected by climate change. 

 

A former co-founder of ground-breaking alternative music industry event, Un-Convention; independent record label founder and boss and musician, playing with many bands, but most notably cult Manchester band, The Fall. She has been a consultant at many international festivals, including Primavera Pro in Barcelona, Shoko Festival in Zimbabwe and DoaDoa in Uganda. She has also held the position of Interim AP Director, Education Skills Fitter, EIT Culture and Creativity and has been a Trustee at several music and arts organisations in the UK.

 

She has produced critically acclaimed music collaborations across the world and instigated major international arts projects - from collaborations between jazz musicians in Soweto with UK electronic pioneers, Coldcut to music featuring frogs in the Colombian rainforest and Brian Eno to indigenous artists in the Arctic and Bicep. 

 

Working for over twenty years in communities, music and the arts, academia and the NGO sector, she has an extensive knowledge of how to make meaningful, impactful and artistic projects to the highest artistic quality. She loves to bring interesting and experienced people together to devise, create and disrupt, and has an extensive address book, spanning world-leading academics, musicians, artists, authors, community leaders and indigenous communities. 

 

She has worked with some of the most interesting and exciting musicians on the planet and is committed to using music as a tool to make change. She will forever be inspired by MC Lupa in Colombia, who said if it wasn’t for hip-hop he would be dead. This really impacted on how important music can be to provide a different life. Visiting some of the most conflict affected communities in the world, she learned about the dynamism of communities that face complex daily challenges and the role of the arts in creating purpose, change and safe spaces - allowing people to imagine different more positive futures. 

 

Running a growing NGO based in the UK, Ireland and USA, working internationally with young change-makers, she is proud to have championed a Global Music Industry Advisory Board made up of twenty-three of the biggest music companies in the world, a Youth Advisory Board, a Climate Advisory Board and positioned international change-makers on the main board of the organisation. She has installed a world-class Board of trustees and works with a 90% female team. 

 

Her networks are vast - from building a Global Music Industry Advisory Board with representatives from 25 of the biggest music companies in the world, to building a community of Fellows including Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson and Run The Jewels.

 

She sits as a trustee on Manchester based publishing company, Comma Press and volunteers for Manchester based homeless charity Depaul, alongside supporting local grassroots social and environmental activist organisation Andrými in Reykjavik.

 

Most recently she has devised a new project responding to the climate crisis, using music to tell the story of climate change, working with indigenous communities, musicians, cultural organisers, scientists and climate activists and experts. The project aims to distill big complicated data and reach young people’s hearts and minds, inspiring a clear call to action and unifying a movement to stop climate change. Earthsonic will engage young people and communities across the world via a record label with a roster of artists collaborating with sounds of climate change, live streamed concerts from disappearing spaces, education and advocacy. 

 

She has written several degree and masters programmes and lectured across several academic institutions including Waterbear, Brighton, University of Warwick, Cambridge University and University of Manchester. 

 

She is proud to have spoken at over 100 international events, including keynotes at TEDx, Face The Music and Primavera Pro to name a few. She has a podcast with good friend, Laima Leyton, called Music Saved My Life. She is a member of the Nordic Women’s Leadership Network. She is Carbon Literate. 

 

She is a socialist and an activist and believes in peace, diversity and equity. 

 

She was born and bred in and around Manchester in the UK, but now lives in Reykjavik, Iceland with her husband, Eddie, and little dog, Sox. Despite living in Iceland and seeing several live volcanos, she still hasn’t met Bjork.

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Board Memberships

• Former Head of the Anna Lindh Foundation Network in the UK (2015 - 2022)

• Current Board Membership: Comma Press

• Former Board Member: Featured Artist Coalition (UK), Association of Independent Music (UK), All FM (UK), Future’s Venture / Radical Independent Arts Fund (UK)