Educational Support Network encouraging Young Women to join the UK Music Industry, and to support all Women to reach their Full Potential

“We #ChooseToChallenge the UK Music Industry!” 

“If we want more women to make it in our industry, we need them in every niche and every level of seniority.” - Karen Emanuel, CEO, Key Production Group

“It’s about education and opening gateways after Uni. Students we meet are blown away by the fact we are women who’ve reached such a senior level in music. That shouldn’t be the case.” – Jenni Cochrane, CEO, Getahead

A group of influential women who have reached the top in the UK music industry have joined forces to form ‘Moving The Needle’ (MTN), an educational support group which launches for International Women’s Day 2021. Its members #ChooseToChallenge the status quo where women come into the UK music industry in droves, yet only hold a third of senior management roles. That’s despite the fact the UK is famed for pushing the boundaries of creative innovation as the world’s second biggest exporter of music - an industry worth £5.2Bn a year. 

Findings from the UK Music Diversity Report published in October by the UK’s overarching music trade body showed little progress on gender:- 

• Women hold 65% of the entry level roles but only â…“ of senior management roles
• Women earn just 73% of what men get paid. For those earning a bonus, it’s 23% lower
• Only 35% of women in the industry are aged 45+ which is lower than in 2018 (39%)
• Only 2%* of senior management roles are held by black women (African or Afro-Caribbean) 

*Stat from A Seat At The Table 

MTN’s mission is therefore three-fold: to boost the pipeline of young women coming into the industry by educating them about the wide range of careers available to them; to support women in all types of job within the UK music industry; to mentor women to reach their full potential and help them gain senior management roles.

Its vision is to see women of all backgrounds, ethnicities and personality types join the many niches and roles available; for women to know that their talent and hard work will be reflected in the promotions, pay and respect they deserve, regardless of gender; a 0% gender pay gap; women in 50% of the industry’s senior management roles; women staying in the industry beyond the age of 45.

MTN’s leadership programme will consist of mentoring and training via workshops, panels and debates, with a focus on building vital career skills, such as how to network and negotiate. The group will also help to drive out ‘imposter syndrome’ and build resilience. (It’s OK to ‘fail’ because F.A.I.L stands for ‘first attempt in learning’.) 

By attracting others who share its vision, MTN will put pressure on people and organisations to change for the better. Vick Bain, Consultant and curator of The F-List, is on MTN’s advisory board. In her words, “There is not one black, female CEO or Chair of a UK music trade body. Everyone in the industry should be helping in our mission. We want to feel proud that our dynamic industry is fair and diverse, and we’re prepared to make some noise to make this happen. We need people and organisations to join in our mission. The time is now!”

Karen Emanuel, Founder & CEO of Key Production Group is a board member and founder of MTN. After 30 years running a company making physical music formats (records, CDs, cassettes), she reflects, “In the late 1980s, someone told me that to join this industry, I’d have to start as a secretary. Well I never learned to type, and I’ve done pretty well without that skill by knowing my numbers. But I’m still not seeing enough women come in and rise to the top in the ‘nuts and bolts’ side of this business. It drives me crazy.”

The women behind MTN believe there is no other organisation that offers the range of support it will give to women of all ages, stages and niches of the music industry. Jen Otter Bickerdike, who was the youngest ever director of marketing at label, Interscope, and who lectures at BIMM music college, notes, “I’ve never, ever had a mentor in the industry. There’s a real  lack of support for women. When I left the label, no women were above me, which indicated there was no pathway. We hope to make a difference now as part of Moving The Needle.”

UNSEEN, UNHEARD
Many women who graduate in music performance degrees vanish from the industry over time. Vick Bain notes, “Nearly half (46%) of our music performance graduates are female, yet just 14% of songwriters and composers are women. Women exit the music industry far too young.” Consider the fact only 3 of the 32 people nominated for Best Song at the 2020 BRIT Awards were female, with no females winning Best Album or Best Group. This is leading men - as well as women - to speak out. Whilst receiving their gong for Best Group, Foals’ lead singer, Yannis Philippakis, said, “Hopefully next year we’ll see some more women in this category.” Influential men are voting with their feet, which MTN encourages wholeheartedly, so it is seeking male advocates such as Matt Healy of The 1975, who pledged only to play at festivals committed to gender balanced line-ups. 

Silvia Montello, Founder and CEO of VoiceBox Consulting (formerly Senior VP of AWAL), notes, “There are very few women in A&R (talent development) which means fewer females are signed to labels. This in turn means fewer female artists enter the music industry talent pipeline. Due to unconscious bias, your average middle class white male A&R guy is more likely to sign artists who are similar to him.” 

‘YOU DON’T HAVE TO HOLD A MIC TO BE PART OF OUR INDUSTRY’
Yet, it’s not just the performance talent pool that needs balancing. There are hundreds of roles across the music industry that female pupils and young women should know about, so a key mission at MTN is encouraging more of them to enter the industry. Julie Weir, Label Head at Music For Nations (Sony Music) implores, “We’ll be telling young women at schools and colleges about the rich array of roles on offer. They may only know about the roles traditionally associated with women, such as PR and marketing.” Karen Emanuel adds, “We need to bring young women into the ‘behind the scenes’ areas and ‘nuts and bolts’ roles such as mine, which are still predominantly male. At a recent conference I attended about distribution and manufacture of music, I calculated how many attendees were female: it was a miserly 5%!”

Siofra McComb, Director at Positive Subversion, explains: “There’s a lack of mentoring support within the industry, and that’s partly the reason why I wanted to get involved in MTN. We want to support young women to come into areas of music normally associated with men if they want to. Why shouldn’t an engineering role for a label be suitable for a woman? ”

IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR. OR IS IT?
Sadly, there is plenty of evidence showing that having a family means women leave the industry over time. The Balancing Act, PiPA 2019, found 55% of parents working in music are on precarious contracts, with 80% of parents in music having to turn down work. Jenni Cochrane, CEO of Getahead, who has worked in the music industry for 20 plus years, points out, “Covid has shown men having to work from home how much women in our industry have to juggle, how challenging it is to get the work-family balance right, and the toll this takes on our mental health. A new respect and understanding has emerged, and we hope to build on it as part of Moving The Needle.”

NOT FADE AWAY: HOW TO KEEP WOMEN IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS
In particular, there’s an exodus of women leaving the industry before they reach Senior Management. Karen notes, “Women may leave because they don’t get good enough support after returning from maternity leave, or because having children means they are unable to network as much as their male counterparts, or because (certainly pre-covid) they aren’t given the flexibility they need. Or maybe they just assume they’ll never get to the top, because they hardly see any women there. When I started Key Production, people would arrive in my office and ask me if they could see the boss. I was the boss!” 

WILL THE REVOLUTION BE RECORDED, OR JUST TELEVISED?
Silvia sums things up, “There’s tons of evidence that says a diverse team makes a better team! You need different people to bring up different ideas and perspectives.” Karen adds, “We all want to give as much advice as we can to help other women (and men) achieve what we have – despite the odds stacked against them.” Julie Weir adds, “I’ve been part of the music industry for 25 years in many forms, and feel privileged as such. I want to be able to give something back and bring through a new generation of people into this creative and vibrant world.” 

Siofra McComb, states, “I’ve faced a different set of challenges at every stage of my career, so I really value the advice and support I’ve been given by my peers and female leaders of this industry. It’s amazing to be a part of this group of empowering, driven and smart women using all the lessons they’ve learned along the way to give back through education, mentoring, and support.”