mentorship
In the music industry, I’ve realized how important it is to open doors for others. Being a Latin woman in this industry means running into quite a few locked doors. These barriers aren’t just about missing opportunities; they often come down to gender or where we come from, making it feel like we’re all scrambling for a key that’s hard to find.
After nearly 15 years in this field, we’ve been lucky enough to enter rooms we never dreamed possible. Having secured a seat at the table and pushed open doors that were once closed to us, we feel a deep responsibility to keep those doors ajar for others. This journey has highlighted the unique hurdles women face in the music industry and has motivated me to ensure these doors stay open, particularly for other women aiming to make their mark and overcome the challenges we once faced.
In the MIDIA Women in Music 2022 survey, when respondents were asked what would encourage women and other “non-male gender identities” to grow in the music industry, mentoring and coaching opportunities were overwhelmingly the top response. It’s a resource I wish I had when I was coming up through the business, as I often faced a lack of access to other women, and particularly fellow Latinas, who could help guide me throughout my career. I was fortunate to have lots of great colleagues who inspired me but I was always craving that deeper connection and a safe space to have open conversations with women in this industry who have stood where I did or could offer fresh perspectives.
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As a foundational team member at Symphonic Distribution, I’ve navigated the challenges of expanding a business within a small music market. As a Latina, these experiences have equipped me with the insight to provide the mentorship opportunities I always wished were available to me, to others. With the launch of the Women Empowered+ Program at Symphonic, we’ve created a testament to the belief that mentorship can change careers and lives, particularly for women.
Since beginning the program in 2022, we have connected 165 mentors from companies across the music industry with 340 mentees spanning the U.S., Mexico, Latin America, South America, Europe and Africa. This initiative reflects our commitment to dismantling the barriers that disproportionately affect women in music, providing them with the guidance, support, and opportunities they have historically been denied.
As we prepared to launch our third year of the program this March during Women’s History Month, I began reflecting on what we have been doing well and what we could do better going forward — not just at Symphonic but in the industry in general. With this perspective, I’d like to share some suggestions and insights aimed at creating effective mentorship programs for women and diverse genders in the music industry, for companies committed to making an impact.
Structure Objectives and a Matching Protocol
Define the program’s objectives upfront, ensuring both parties have a mutual understanding of their roles, expectations, timeline and time commitment. Launch the program with a clear framework, pairing mentors and mentees based on complementary interests and career goals. We created a simple Airtable form with all the details we felt were needed to fully understand each of our mentors and mentees.
Resources, Support and Honesty
Provide training and/or resources to prepare participants for effective mentoring relationships. The cornerstone of an effective mentorship is confidentiality, fostering an environment where open and honest conversations can occur, grounded in trust and mutual respect. Maintain a support system for addressing challenges, while allowing flexibility to meet diverse needs and schedules. This ensures the program is both supportive and adaptable to individual circumstances.
Feedback and Community Building
Implement a continuous feedback loop to refine the program and recognize participants’ efforts and achievements through the program through surveys. Foster a community of past and present mentees and mentors to encourage networking, shared learning and ongoing support, enhancing the overall impact and sustainability of the mentorship initiative. This can be done via Facebook Groups, Slack, Whatsapp or any other community-building platforms. We discovered that some of the mentors and mentees can help by being the community manager for these.
By bringing the next generation of female music executives up through your mentoring program, we are in turn training the next generation of mentors who will be able to reach out and continue to help bring people in. Whether mentoring or being mentored, we are all contributing to the common goal of making things better for those who come after us.
As we gear up for another year of fostering connections and growth through the Women Empowered+ Program, I’m reminded of the transformative power when we choose to support and uplift one another. We encourage every company in the music industry to create similar programs to cultivate more diverse talent and hope our experience can be a guide for others to take action and inspire even more women to join our industry. In a world where the music industry’s doors seem heavy and unwelcoming, let us be the force that opens them wider, inviting in the voices of women who have waited for their chance to be heard. Together, we can ensure that the next generation of female talent finds a nurturing space where their goals are encouraged, supported by a community that understands the unique challenges they face and believes in the power of mentorship to change not just careers, but lives.
Janette Berrios is the vp of corporate marketing for Symphonic Distribution, a leading independent music distributor with a global presence. She was included on Billboard‘s prestigious Indie Power Players list in 2022 and 2021 and was honored with the “Wonder Women in Latin Music” award presented by the LAMC and Amazon Music.
Some of the most important workplace skills can only be learned on the job — from building relationships with colleagues to positioning yourself for a promotion to dealing with long hours to being able to tell if a work situation is truly strange or totally normal.
But for women — many of whom find it easier to confide in other women at work — finding a colleague to figure these things out with can be harder in a male-skewing industry like the music business.
A 2023 study conducted by Luminate, Tunecore and Believe found a host of female-specific challenges in the music industry, including increased instances of sexual harassment, ageism and unequal representation along with a persistent wage gap. These challenges are particularly acute in the indie realm, where, despite some improvements, senior leadership continues to be largely male.
“Independents tend to be niche spaces and our company sizes are smaller,” says Katie Alberts, COO of the Atlanta-based Reach Records. “If you have a historic trend of men being in leadership and your company only has 10 people, you might not have that female executive within your company as an example for other women.”
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To take on the issue, Merlin, the digital music licensing partner for independent labels, launched a new mentorship program for women, Merlin Engage, early last year. The program paired 18 executive-level mentors with mentees from around the indie label space for a six-month program designed to offer community, leadership skills and advice on how to thrive and rise within the industry and the indie space in particular. The program was initiated by Marie Clausen, managing director of Ninja Tune North America and a Merlin Engage mentor. The 2024 Merlin Engage program starts March 20.
When she applied for the debut program, Magali Ould of Secret City Records was in discussions with upper management about a possible promotion. “We’re 14 employees,” she says. “It’s not a huge company, so every promotion is crucial.”
Magali Ould and Katie Alberts
Nadia Zheng; Courtesy Photo
Secret City president/CEO Justin West, who’s also a Merlin board member, suggested that Ould apply to the Engage program to connect with other women in leadership roles. Ould was accepted and paired with Jenna LoMonaco, the head of U.S. marketing at digital distribution service ONErpm. Over the next six months, the pair regularly spoke on the phone, discussing things like how to build and demonstrate leadership skills, how to prioritize, personality management within the company, public speaking, and presenting skills and relationship building.
Having a mentor, Ould says, gave her a “better understanding and perspective on what it takes to be upper management.” It also helped her score the promotion she was aiming for: Secret City GM.
Ould says working with LoMonaco also helped her see that many of the situations she was dealing with at work, and which seemed potentially unique to her work life, were actually common. Ould says this understanding enhanced her confidence, particularly in moments when she would have previously second guessed herself. She says this knowledge and confidence have helped her stand her ground as a woman in a leadership position.
“Jenna said, ‘Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness,’ which was very helpful for me,” Ould recalls. “I think women can be perceived as being nice, but then we don’t take our space so people might think they can just get their way. This experience showed me how to be caring and also how to still get s— done.”
Alberts of Reach Records served as a mentor in the program and says the experience was extra special because her mentee was pregnant. As such, the pair not only talked about professional goals, but also created a plan for her transition back into work after maternity leave and adjusting to life as a working mom. While the official program is over, Alberts and her mentee are still in touch on work and life matters.
“To see that we did the prep work for a smooth transition back to work, then seeing her reintegrate into working life as a new mom, is super cool,” says Alberts.
In addition to ongoing one-on-one meetings (for which mentors and mentees set their own schedule), the debut Engage program included three program-wide meetings over Zoom, with participants from across the United States. along with cities including London, Brussels and Cape Town, South Africa. The second Engage program will include 15 mentor-mentee pairings, with participants from 10 countries and 28 different Merlin-affiliated companies.
Alberts, who’s returning as a mentor, says there won’t be any major changes to the program except for potentially more of the program-wide Zoom meetups given how much information was mined from hearing about other mentor/mentee experiences. These wider meetings also allowed for participants to collaborate across companies and territories, with the diversity of Merlin affiliated labels allowing for noncompetitive knowledge sharing.
“We’re able to learn and grow from each other through this exchange of information,” says Alberts. “Like, ‘Hey, we made this mistake on this platform, or here’s how we optimized in this in a really interesting way.’”
“That allows us to pool resources,” she continues, “And I think there’s a lot of alignment with Merlin’s vision in that too, because it’s about the collective weight of independents together.”
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