We recently met Karim Newton in our Newburgh Street store, he is CEO and founder of the Co-Nector a creative consulting agency that brings like minded individuals and businesses together.
Karim has been on a journey of discovery over the last year and a half, he is currently working on building eco-systems that connect creatives, brands, businesses and investors together. He helps build links with like minded individuals, works on ideas, and helps build teams and structures to help facilitate a creative output.
" It's been a journey of a year and a half, having a lot of conversations, not really understanding what I was doing for some of the time but I've been very fortunate to meet the right kind of people and been able to work alongside just lovely humans in general....I have a lot of mentors and great connections who are doing a lot of amazing things, and they just happen to be close friends too, so I'm just figuring it out as I go along."
Karim's background is firmly rooted in music, he was in a band for seven and a half years between the age of 16 and 24. he knew he wanted to sing from an early age. He took four years off from music to explore other avenues and came back to music in 2021, this is when the journey began in working with partnerships and facilitation.
"By putting people first, then finding out what they want to do, I find out a lot of things very early just because they have come up in conversation."
Karim has already got an impressive list of working contacts, he's helped an artist development programme, community radio station and a start up streaming app. He's worked with Universal Music in the global partnership team, he is always looking and supporting up and coming rising talent, he manages a DJ, visual creative, a spoken word poet, lyricist and pianist. There is an amazing set of musicians around and there's a lot of varied work that Karim loves.
" I love talking to people and meeting new people, what I've found is that I've been so fortunate in having a very tight community of amazingly talented, really kind hearted people that support me. When you condense this down I'd much rather have this small community of people you can rely on and are going to be there rather than 5,6,7 times the amount that wont show up when it's necessary."
We asked Karim what the future holds for him;
" I use to predict what was going to happen in the future, I had a road map in my head but recently the scope of what can happen over the next year has expanded massively. I want to travel more, spend more time learning and seeing different cultures and have an understanding of how global markets work. The goal now is really to create some kind of creative fund and start helping creatives from an internal space, helping to create a hub for creatives and potential investors, seeking up and coming talent, partnering them up with mentors and be able to help businesses that are doing good in the world, to find their feet, we've found a lot of amazing companies that just need that little push in the right direction. The future is an exciting prospect."
We wholeheartedly agree with Karim about the future, if you want to find out more follow him on instagram @karimnewton_
