Episode 550 – How NAMM Is Revolutionizing the Music Industry in 2025 | John Mlynczak

In this week’s episode, I sit down with the brilliant John Mlynczak, the president and CEO of the National Association of Music Merchants (also known as NAMM).

John started in the music business as a hotshot trumpet player in New Orleans with a passion for music education. 

From an early age, John has been interested in music technology, which eventually led him to taking a job as director of education with PreSonus, then with book publisher Hal Leonard, and then to his current position at NAMM.

In this episode, he and I will be discussing how trade shows like NAMM are evolving, how NAMM compares to trade shows in other industries, the change music consumers and retailers have seen over the years, his passion for music technology and how it led to major changes in school curriculums, and so much more.

Are you ready to meet this visionary?

Then tune in now!

Key Takeaways:

Introduction (00:00)

Learning from being a CEO (01:13)

How NAMM is moving the music industry forward (04:00)

How the music creation experience has changed (12:09)

NAMM 2025 (20:46)

More info about Summer NAMM (24:03)

Get to know John (32:04)

Our last question (38:10)

Additional Resources:

Learn more about John’s work: https://www.johnmlynczak.com/ 

Learn more about NAMM: https://www.namm.org/ 

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