Merlin Revisits Female Mentorship Program for Indie Music Executives

Some of a very powerful office abilities can solely be realized on the job — from constructing relationships with colleagues to positioning your self for a promotion to coping with lengthy hours to with the ability to inform if a piece scenario is actually unusual or completely regular.

But for girls — a lot of whom discover it simpler to open up to different girls at work — discovering a colleague to determine this stuff out with might be tougher in a male-skewing trade just like the music enterprise.

A 2023 examine performed by Luminate, Tunecore and Believe discovered a number of female-specific challenges within the music trade, together with elevated cases of sexual harassment, ageism and unequal illustration together with a persistent wage hole. These challenges are significantly acute within the indie realm, the place, regardless of some enhancements, senior management 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.” 

To tackle the problem, Merlin, the digital music licensing companion for unbiased labels, launched a brand new mentorship program for girls, Merlin Engage, early final yr. The program paired 18 executive-level mentors with mentees from across the indie label area for a six-month program designed to supply neighborhood, management abilities and recommendation on the best way to thrive and rise inside the trade and the indie area specifically. The program was initiated by Marie Clausen, managing director of Ninja Tune North America and a Merlin Engage mentor. The 2024 Merlin Engage program begins March 20. 

When she utilized for the debut program, Magali Ould of Secret City Records was in discussions with higher administration a couple of attainable promotion. “We’re 14 employees,” she says. “It’s not a huge company, so every promotion is crucial.” 

Secret City president/CEO Justin West, who’s additionally a Merlin board member, recommended that Ould apply to the Engage program to attach with different girls in management roles. Ould was accepted and paired with Jenna LoMonacoe, the pinnacle of U.S. advertising and marketing at digital distribution service ONErpm. Over the subsequent six months, the pair recurrently spoke on the cellphone, discussing issues like the best way to construct and display management abilities, the best way to prioritize, character administration inside the firm, public talking, and presenting abilities and relationship constructing. 

Having a mentor, Ould says, gave her a “better understanding and perspective on what it takes to be upper management.” It additionally helped her rating the promotion she was aiming for: Secret City GM.  

Ould says working with LoMonacoe additionally helped her see that lots of the conditions she was coping with at work, and which appeared doubtlessly distinctive to her work life, had been truly frequent. Ould says this understanding enhanced her confidence, significantly in moments when she would have beforehand second guessed herself. She says this information and confidence have helped her stand her floor as a lady in a management place.  

“Jenna said, ‘Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness,’ which was very helpful for me,” Ould recollects. “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 this system and says the expertise was further particular as a result of her mentee was pregnant. As such, the pair not solely talked about skilled objectives, but in addition created a plan for her transition again into work after maternity depart and adjusting to life as a working mother. While the official program is over, Alberts and her mentee are nonetheless in contact on work and life issues.  

“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 conferences (for which mentors and mentees set their very own schedule), the debut Engage program included three program-wide conferences over Zoom, with individuals from throughout the United States. together with cities together with London, Brussels and Cape Town, South Africa. The second Engage program will embrace 15 mentor-mentee pairings, with individuals from 10 international locations and 28 totally different Merlin-affiliated corporations.  

Alberts, who’s returning as a mentor, says there received’t be any main adjustments to this system besides for doubtlessly extra of the program-wide Zoom meetups given how a lot data was mined from listening to about different mentor/mentee experiences. These wider conferences additionally allowed for individuals to collaborate throughout corporations and territories, with the variety of Merlin affiliated labels permitting for noncompetitive data 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.”