With 23+ years of music industry experience, Kelly is an award-winning executive who launched KR Consults as her own independent consultancy out of her adopted home of New York in 2019.
As a joint US/UK citizen, Kelly has built a reputation of applying her background on both sides of the pond, with an enthusiasm for creativity, strategy, artist development and connecting with audiences in authentic and meaningful ways.
In 2020, she managed the Global Campaign for the Dalai Lama 'Inner World' project for HitCo Entertainment, resulting in it reaching #1 on the Billboard New Age Album Chart, #4 Top New Artist Album Chart, peaking at #2 on the Global iTunes Album Chart and more. Currently, she is primarily working within the CTK Enterprises / Butterfly Records team in the role of VP, Global Marketing, as part of the team behind the campaign for Dolly Parton's latest record breaking 'Rockstar' album release, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Album Sales Chart, with her biggest sales week in the modern era. Prior to 'Rockstar', Ridgway began working with the Dolly and CTK team in support of her 'Run, Rose, Run' album in 2022, which accompanied the original novel of the same title co-authored by Dolly and James Patterson. The book spent 5 weeks at #1 on The NY Times Bestseller List, and the album debuted at #4 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, and #1 on both the Billboard Top Americana/Folk Albums chart and Bluegrass Albums chart. It is currently being developed into a movie by Hello Sunshine/Sony Pictures.
In addition to campaign management, popular services include Artist Coaching (case studies available on request) and Business Development for companies such as Songfluencer, who are experts in running Short Form video (TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts) and influencer campaigns.
Prior to launching her consultancy, Kelly was the US General Manager for WMA (Weller Media Agency) and still regularly works with the WMA family. WMA is a full service digital creative agency dedicated to helping talent and brands connect with their target audience. Kelly was tasked with launching and building the US arm of a global team to 3 US locations in NY, LA and Nashville, delivering award-winning campaigns across marketing strategy, publicity, creative services, social media, digital advertising and talent partnerships.
Before WMA, she worked for Julian Casablancas’ independent imprint Cult Records, where she was responsible for managing all aspects of the label’s day-to-day activity, including digital, marketing, promotions, production and international, notably for Karen O.
In London, she was at Polydor Records for over 8 years in a senior marketing role, working on a wide range of artists at all stages of careers, including Lady Gaga, Beck, Feist, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Cure and many more.
During her time at Universal Music, Kelly also won the Music Week Award for ‘Artist Marketing Campaign of the Year’ for spearheading the campaign that broke Lady Gaga in the UK.
Kelly combines her extensive experience with a wide variety of global contacts and partners. Furthermore, she is passionate about supporting new talent within the industry, and is actively involved in shesaid.so as the co-Director of their New York chapter, helping to organize panels, breakfast meet-ups and collaborative opportunities with other women’s groups. She also appeared in their Alternative Power List 2019, which featured women who were nominated on the theme of ‘Community’.
Outside of shesaid.so, Kelly was recently invited to join the Recording Academy in 2021, has regularly taken part in NY’s various Student Leadership Network’s programs and has both mentored at SXSW and spoken at NYU on multiple occasions.
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