Ann Marie Wilkins

Ann Marie Wilkins is the founder and chief executive officer of Wilkins Management, Inc. (WMI), an entertainment company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wilkins founded WMI in 1986 with an emphasis in music management, and for the past two decades has been instrumental in developing the careers of such musicians as Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick, Jr., and Joshua Redman. Over the years, she has expanded the activities of WMI’s artists beyond live and recorded music to encompass film and television, as well as Broadway and regional theater productions. Wilkins has produced Emmy Award-winning and critically acclaimed television shows and DVDs as a principal of HC Productions, Inc. In addition, Marsalis Music, the record company she cofounded with Branford Marsalis, has produced Grammy-nominated recordings and award-winning DVDs.

In 2011, Wilkins was elected to the board of directors of the Jones Group, Inc., a NYSE fashion and footwear conglomerate.

In addition to her professional activities, Wilkins serves as chair of the board of New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village, an organization created in response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Musicians’ Village consists of Habitat for Humanity-constructed homes for displaced low-income musicians and the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, a 17,000 square foot facility that serves as a performance, education, and community venue.

Wilkins received both her B.Sc. and M.B.A. degrees from Cornell University. After completing business school (with a concentration in accounting and finance), she became a CPA and worked for KPMG (formerly Peat Marwick Mitchell) in Houston, Texas.  She next earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, after which she practiced corporate law at Arnold and Porter, a major law firm in Washington, D.C., before founding WMI.

Wilkins is married to David Wilkins, a professor at Harvard Law School, and is the proud mother of a son, Brian.