Guest Session by Mr. Rashik Bhattarai, Executive Director of Garage Entertainment

What does it truly take to lead a pioneering business in artist management in a country like Nepal, where the industry is still finding its feet and the market is unpredictable? And how does a sudden global pandemic shake an early-stage startup that had barely found its footing?

These were the questions at the core of our guest lecture session hosted at Embark College, where Mr. Rashik Bhattarai, Executive Director of Garage Entertainment, joined our MBA cohort studying Strategic Leadership and Change. From co-founding Garage Entertainment in 2019 with four friends and a vision to professionalise Nepal’s music industry, to steering the company through the complete shutdown of live events during COVID-19, to ultimately orchestrating the Arijit Singh Live concert in 2023, one of the largest concerts ever held in Nepal, Mr. Bhattarai’s story is one of building boldly, surviving against the odds, and reshaping what Nepal’s entertainment industry can look like.

Facilitated by visiting faculty Ms. Shreeya Bhattarai, the session moved between theory and lived experience, drawing on textbook frameworks of leadership while grounding them in the raw reality of building and sustaining a business through crisis. Mr. Bhattarai brings extensive experience in artist management, brand partnerships, and large-scale event production. Under his leadership, Garage Entertainment today manages some of Nepal’s leading artists including Swoopna Suman, The Elements, Wangden Sherpa, Sushant Ghimire, and Sushant KC, with international tours spanning East Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. The conversation challenged assumptions, surfaced hard-won lessons, and pulled back the curtain on an industry that looks far more glamorous from the outside than it feels from within.

Here is how the conversation unfolded.

As someone who had previously worked in the marketing space with multiple brands, how did your role shift from being a manager to a leader as an owner of Garage Entertainment? What was the major change in leading a new company in a completely new industry for the Nepali market?

The transition from consultant to founder brought an immediate shift in responsibility – one that Rashik describes as both clarifying and humbling.

The major difference that I felt immediately was that I am the one people are looking up to for decisions. It becomes important to set your vision, your voice, and the culture of your organisation. Since COVID hit us within a few months of starting Garage, I also understood very soon that I do not know everything and that it is important to seek help to grow in a completely new industry. It is essential to admit, even to yourself, that leaders may not know everything needed to make a decision. But, you keep learning by doing.

We talk about leaders being visionary, courageous, and having the charisma to influence people. From your personal experience, what are the skills, soft or hard, that truly are key to surviving any startup in the Nepali market?

When the ideals of leadership meet the realities of an underdeveloped market, the answer is often harder.

The most crucial skill I have realised from personal experience is resilience. In a market like Nepal where this industry is still not considered a significant one, there are not even proper policies, rules, and structures to follow when seeking a legal approvals. Resilience is something you need to keep navigating such challenges in a market with unclear processes at every step of the way. You cannot wait for the system to be ready. You have to move anyway.

When COVID shut everything down, the live music and events world was arguably the hardest hit industry globally. What was the hardest decision you had to make as a leader during that period and how did you make that call when you were also navigating your own uncertainty?

For a company that had existed for only a few months, the shutdown of the live events industry was more than a setback.

The hardest part was not knowing how long it would last or what the other side would look like. As a leader, you are expected to have direction, but there was no roadmap for this. The decision I had to make was to resist the urge to wait and instead keep the team and our artists moving even if the direction kept changing. Doing nothing was not an option.

How did you lead your team and your artists through that period — especially when you yourself did not have the answers?

It was all about teamwork and trusting each other. I did not have all the answers, but my team and I explored several other avenues to keep things going — including social media platforms like YouTube. Everyone during COVID was affected physically and mentally, and music played a crucial role in helping people feel better during such hard times. We focused on that and encouraged our artists to try new things and adapt their skills to the situation. The crisis, in some ways, pushed us all to be more creative than we had been before.

Looking back, what is the one thing you wish you had understood about leadership before the crisis hit?

That seeking help is not a weakness, it can be a strategy. I think many leaders, especially in the early stages, feel the pressure to have all the answers. I wish I had understood sooner that admitting you do not know something, and actively going out to find people who do, is one of the most powerful things a leader can do. COVID taught me that faster than anything else could have.

Garage’s mission is to handle all the non-creative aspects so artists can focus entirely on their craft. How do you balance getting the business done while managing creative people with big personalities and high emotions along with the expectations of audiences and fans?

Perhaps one of the most significant challenges in artist management is navigating the space between business logic and creative emotion, a balance Mr. Bhattarai has had to develop with intention.

Artists come with deep emotion and passion for their craft. They would not always see projects or collaborations as business or financial gain, since there is emotion attached to their work. My role is to consider their values while also showing them avenues that can genuinely help them grow, ones they might not see themselves. Fans carry their own emotions towards the artist too. Despite receiving both love and criticism for the work we do, we are constantly looking out for the best interests of the artist. That has to remain the compass.

Tell us about the biggest Nepali concert so far – Arijit Singh Live in 2023. What made you decide this was the moment to do a show of this scale, and what was the vision behind it?

This vision had been there for over five years. My team and I wanted to show that such a show was possible in Nepal. I pursued the artist for about two years, and if it had not happened in 2023, it would not have been possible later. We really wanted him to perform in Nepal, and the timing finally aligned in 2023 for both the team and the artist. Sometimes the vision has to wait for the right moment, but you have to keep it alive until that moment arrives.

Pulling off a large event means managing artists, sponsors, venues, production teams, regulators and audiences, all with very different expectations. What was the most unexpected or unpredictable situation you had to deal with?

An event of this scale inevitably brings surprises that no amount of planning can fully anticipate. The reality of pulling off something this large in Nepal is that every layer comes with its own set of challenges from regulatory approvals to last-minute production issues. Audience only witness a night of glamour. Behind the scene, there is weeks of problem-solving, the phone calls at midnight, and the decisions made with incomplete information and no time to spare. The gap between what an event looks like from the audience and what it takes to deliver it is enormous.

Five friends building a company together is a leadership challenge in itself. How do you navigate decisions, disagreements, and shared ownership within your own founding team?

We started the company because we were very clear about our vision and values from the beginning. We aligned well with each other and had a clear division of work. Every decision goes through a vote and we always work with the majority. Since every decision is focused on collective agreement, we have not had any issue that led to major disagreements. The most important thing when working with friends who become co-founders is communication. It is always better to lay everything out, discuss it openly, and move forward with consensus. Transparency within the founding team is the foundation.

The module we teach talks about the need for kindness, humility, and wellbeing in modern leadership. Does that resonate with how you run Garage or does the pressure of the industry demand something tougher?

It is always about balance. There are times when it is essential to be decisive and make calls for the overall benefit of the company. We are all human at the end of the day, so kindness, humility, and wellbeing cannot be treated as separate concepts from leadership, they are part of it. However, it depends on the situation and knowing when each is called for. Balance is the key.

Music distribution, streaming platforms, content creation, AI-generated music – the industry is shifting fast. Have you felt AI affecting the Nepali market as well, in terms of how music is made, marketed, or consumed?

AI has made things simpler. Tasks that would previously take days in music creation can now be done faster and more efficiently. Although AI can generate music itself, which raises real questions for artists, I would not say we have seen significant negative effects in the Nepali market yet. Music distribution, streaming platforms, and content creation have been slowly growing in Nepal, though the country remains many years behind globally. We need more policies, regulations, and proper support to build and develop this sector. That said, many artists today have found multiple avenues of income due to the growth of streaming platforms and content creation.

What is something about leadership or navigating a crisis that you wish more business students understood – something that rarely shows up in textbooks?

A leader needs to be flexible. You may not know everything and that is acceptable. Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, agility and adaptability matter more than personality type when it comes to leading through uncertainty. You will not learn everything from books. Learning by doing is often the most effective way to grow and a crisis, as uncomfortable as it is, has a way of accelerating that growth faster than any classroom can.

For an MBA cohort studying strategic leadership and change, this session brought the textbook to life in the most honest way possible. Nepal’s entertainment industry is still writing its story. And if Garage Entertainment’s journey is anything to go by, the most interesting chapters are still ahead.

Written by Ms. Shreeya Bhattarai

Ms. Shreeya Bhattarai is a visiting faculty member at Embark College, where she teaches Strategic Leadership and Change to MBA students. A Swedish Institute Scholar and Royal Thai Government Scholar, she holds an MSc in Data Analytics and Business Economics from Lund University, Sweden, and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. With a professional background spanning project management, data operations, and facilitation across international environments, she brings a practitioner’s lens to the classroom bridging academic frameworks with real-world application.