10 Inspiring women taking the Music Biz by storm this 2023
These music industry badasses have ripped open the doors of the music industry and continue to inspire generations to come. Let their success inspire you to shoot for the stars and to create the reality YOU want to live. Learn more about them right here…
by Randi Zimmerman of Symphonic Blog
Lisa Hresko – General Manager at A2IM. 2023 Billboard Women in Music Executive
Lisa Hresko is the General Manager at A2IM (The American Association of Independent Music). A2IM, which consists of over 700 U.S. record label members and nearly 200 other music businesses, advocates for the needs of the independent music community on a policy level. Additionally, Lisa works to ensure that all A2IM members receive the highest level of education and community resources.
Prior to A2IM, she spent nearly ten-year tenure at CMJ during which time she held several positions including Editor-in-Chief. Her responsibilities encompassed booking the professional programming for CMJ Music Marathon, leading the radio department, and developing international initiatives. Lisa has been an invited speaker at music conferences across the globe. including ADE.
Jen Malone – Music Supervisor
Jen Malone is a three-time Emmy Nominated, Guild of Music Supervisors Award Winner with over ten years experience in the entertainment industry; specifically creative music placement, music licensing & clearance, publicity, marketing, branding, event planning and business development in an entrepreneurial atmosphere, as well as a corporate environment. After securing placements in Yellowjackets, Euphoria, Wednesday, Umbrella Academy and many more, she has proven time and time again to be a music tastemaker taking the industry by storm.
Allie Silver – Company Founder and Director at Free Radical Productions
With over 17 years of experience, Allie Silver is the founder of Free Radical Productions, a music management and consulting company. In the past ten years, Free Radical has produced and managed over 50 international tours in over 37 countries throughout Europe, the US, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America at some of the most prestigious venues and festivals worldwide. Her critically acclaimed Band Therapy consulting program and workshops help artists and artist professionals from all over the world develop personalized strategies for international career development.
In addition to many other roles, she also leads workshops for international organizations and government associations such as Folk Music Canada, Musika Bulegoa in Spain, and Music Pool Berlin. Allie is honored to have served as a Samurai jury member at the World Music Expo. She is the co-founder of Women of the World, a networking group for women in the world music industry.
Paulina Vo – Co Founder at Highnote, Co-Founder and General Manager at The Digilogue
Paulina Vo is an indie, R&B, pop/soul, singer, songwriter, and producer based in Brooklyn. In addition to all these, she’s also the Co-Founder at Highnote and Co-Founder/General Manager at The Digilogue. She boasts over 15 years of customer service experience across some of the best-in-class customer-focused brands, with 10+ years of people and project management experience. Vo has a love for good strategy, brand precision, and automation, as well as an interest in the possibilities we have with technology and its ability to make the world a better place. From writing, recording and performing as an active musician for over 15 years to programming events with NY Topliner Camp and NYC Women Music Producers, she really does it all.
Sharon Tapper – Executive Director of the Music Managers Forum
Sharon Tapper is the Executive Director of the Music Managers Forum-US, the leading trade association for artist managers and self-managed artists in the United States. Serving the music community by providing educational resources, networking opportunities and advocacy efforts on behalf of managers, self-managed artists and the community that supports them.
Shortly after moving to New York she transitioned into music publishing becoming the third U.S. employee at Kobalt Music Publishing and their VP Creative for eight years. Following that she was hired to be the SVP Music Publishing at Razor & Tie Music Publishing. Tapper was elected to serve multiple terms as Governor & Secretary of the NY Chapter of the GRAMMY’s, serving six consecutive terms and Co-Chair of their Advocacy Committee. These are only a few of her roles over the years, as she continues to make waves in the industry with many other accomplishments under her belt.
Rachel Levy – EVP Film Music at Universal Pictures
Currently Sr. VP for Universal Pictures, Rachel Levy has spent the last 18 years working in film music. Her most recent projects for the studio include 50 Shades Freed, Fate of the Furious, Sing!, and Despicable Me 3. Additional Universal credits include 50 Shades Of Grey, 50 Shades Darker, The Secret Life of Pets, The Boss, Get on Up, Identity Thief, Oblivion, Minions, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Snow White & The Hunstman and Universal’s record-breaking franchise films Fast and Furious 6 and Despicable Me 2.
Lisa Robinson – Vice President, Community & Social Engagement
Lisa Robinson is the Vice President of Community and Social Engagement at Downtown Music Holdings, a role that was created for her. In this role, Lisa brings a focus to volunteering initiatives, charitable giving and is deeply committed to initiatives focused on community and bringing diversity, equity, and inclusion to the workplace. She was a founding member of Downtown’s first ERG, Black Power in Music (BPM) as well as President and Founder of Lisa’s Living Room, an organization with a mission to educate, empower and promote conversation. She was recently elected to the Board of Directors of Music Business Association and is an Advisory Board Member of Scholarship Plus. Lisa is also a proud member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
Aside from all this, she joined Songtrust in 2019 to establish and lead a team dedicated to the tracking and recovering of worldwide publishing revenue for more than 2MM songs, as well as many other endeavors since then. Not only is she an icon in the industry, but she’s making the future a better place for all of us.
Jessica Sobhraj – CEO at Cosynd
Jessica Sobhraj is a 10+ year veteran of the music industry and advocate for gender equality that currently serves as CEO of Cosynd, an essential toolkit for creators that allows them to register their content with the U.S. Copyright Office and to easily create copyright ownership agreements with their collaborators. Jessica also serves as Chair of Women in Music – the longest running and largest non-profit for women in the music industry that provides resources to thousands of professionals, worldwide and is operated by a team of 200+. In addition, she served as the Manager of Digital Content Licensing for the performing rights organization SESAC and sits on the advisory board of other non-profits and startups in the music/entertainment industry.
Britnee Foreman – Head of Data Strategy & Digital Ops, Women In Music Board Member, Award Winning Executive
Britnee Foreman is a multi-hyphenate music executive and data strategist with a passion for helping artists and creators make a living doing what they love. Currently, she’s Head of Data Strategy & Digital Operations at Exceleration Music where she scales labels and music catalogs using data, as well as works across company verticals such as royalty collection, marketing, development, and discovery. Her career spans 10+ at the intersection of music, tech, and data analytics.
She has been a sound engineer, artist manager, written for blogs, and spoken at numerous conferences such as Music Biz, SXSW, Canadian Music Week, Measure of Music, among others. In fact, she was the recipient of the inaugural Music Business Association’s Master of Metadata Award which is presented to an executive who has made a significant impact in the area of data processing, credit clarification, streamlining and promoting clean data. She’s also the Global Chair for Membership at Women in Music, an organization committed to advancing equality, visibility and opportunities for women in the musical arts through education, support, empowerment and recognition.
Andréa DaSilva – Program Manager Keychange
As a lifelong champion for diversity and inclusion for all genders and underserved populations, Andrea DaSilva brings a dynamic personality and expertise on the creative industry, IP and digital trade policy, to engage with diverse stakeholders and do business across global markets. Recently she served as the Project Leader for “Music Beyond Borders” an A2IM-ITA export project to facilitate trade and licensing for the U.S. music and digital copyrights sectors. Andrea is a sought-after speaker on global entertainment business and trade at: SXSW, Reeperbahn Festival, NAB Show, Mondo, CMJ, New York Media Festival, SIM São Paulo, NATPE, DISCOP Johannesburg, GBDe, OECD and APEC.
