Ruud Berends
Networking Music / IFF
Malmö, SE
Ruud Berends, owner of Networking Music International, is the co-founder and Head of Agenda at IFF in London. He also serves as the European representative for Canadian Music Week and advises several international conferences, including Westway Lab in Portugal and SoAlive in Bulgaria. From 2002 to 2018, he managed Dutch Music Export for Buma Cultuur. Between 2002 and March 2023, he worked for Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS) as Head of Conference, overseeing ETEP/ESNS Exchange and CEETEP. Earlier in his career, Ruud co-founded and promoted the venue Débarak in Zutphen, Netherlands. He was also a co-founder and co-owner of the international booking agency Paperclip in Nijmegen, which helped bring the new and alternative music scene into the mainstream throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The agency took numerous bands on tour across Europe, including notable acts like Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Mudhoney.
In January 2024 Ruud received the Live Time Achievement Award at Yourope’s European Festivals Awards.
