More about: Moving The Needle

Welcome to our column in association with the wonderful Moving The Needle, the brand new charity helping women of all ethnicities and backgrounds to navigate the music industry and develop their careers - tutoring them as they go.

Every fortnight, Hannah Browne will be meeting women, fielding conversations between them and delivering some white hot advice on how to move the needle that is gender equality within the music industry. 

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“I definitely see that as the years have gone on, women have been treated with more respect in the music industry than from when I first started. I was a very small fish in the big pond that is the music business and one of the only female promotions leads on the island when I was in Ibiza” shares Jenni Cochrane.

Before starting her journey in well-being as the CEO & Co-Founder of mental health non-profit Getahead, Jenni regularly worked seasons in Ibiza and quickly climbed her way up the ladder. Honing her craft and learning about the broad, multi-genre business first-hand, Jenni moved from Glasgow to London in her early 20s and began working for Ministry of Sound, where she met fellow Moving the Needle board member, Victoria Davies. Over 7 years, Jenni grew the company’s global touring business, organising events and festivals for some of the industry’s biggest brands including Hed Kandi and Pacha.

Victoria Davies, however, speaks of her more traditional route into the industry via legal channels. After studying at Manchester University and living in New York for a year in an attempt to fine-tune her interests, a chance meeting led to her joining the marketing department at Ministry of Sound, before soon moving into their legal team. Matching her legal background with her passion for music, Victoria later joined SoundCloud as one of the company’s first lawyers, where she developed skills in the tech industry whilst growing the team and managing nine employees by the time she left. Now, Victoria resides at Twitter where she has been Head of Legal to the UK team since 2017.

“Back then, you needed to work harder and fight harder to be taken seriously”, says Jenni. “I was automatically seen as a DJ’s girlfriend or someone that’s a runner in a club. I was lucky that Renaissance, at the time, was one of the most successful and powerful brands on the island, but people would question how could I, this 18/19-year-old girl from Glasgow, suddenly be running this huge night”. Echoing Jenni’s sentiment, Victoria shares “Historically, the music industry has been incredibly bad at pigeonholing women, or even, just how you’re treated in senior positions within a male environment. I’m quite tough but part of that, I think, is because you had to be. Even now, you hear people talking about how 'we’re not going to recruit a woman who’s of a certain age because she'll go off and have a baby'. It’s ridiculous. I think the problem for young people coming through is that they might not know any different, so they temper their behaviour to conform to that and in turn, we’re pitted against each other.”

Jenni Cochrane.

Jenni continues, “I think that’s why we’re so proud to be involved in movements like this, [because for me] there were no female mentors showing us the way and saying, ‘this is not okay’. We can help educate women and men". “Our key focus is women,” Victoria says, “but it’s also being able to make sure that men educate men and relearn what is acceptable”.

Reflecting on their days at Ministry of Sound, Jenni speaks about allyship with her former team, “I was very lucky to surround myself with a lot of other very strong women. When I joined there was only a couple of us, and we built it up to 20+ at one point - I’d say that three quarters were female. They were all very strong, educated, talented women and they weren’t recruited off the back of them being female, they were recruited on the fact that they were brilliant and were given an opportunity. But, if you rewind 10 years, I don’t think there would have been that level of opportunity because without myself being the director there might not have been someone opening the gateway to women.” 

Our conversation develops to touch upon mental health in the music industry. Mind, one of the UK’s leading mental health charities, reports that people working in the music industry are ‘more prone to mental health problems than the general population, with musicians being up to three times more likely to suffer from depression’.

“Opening up the dialogue is the biggest thing,” says Jenni, “and there are so many organisations out there which have huge funding to support musicians”. However, there seems to be a lack of awareness surrounding the readily available help. “I’ve worked in the music industry for about 17 years and before I started Getahead, I wasn’t really aware of Help Musicians, Music Minds Matter or all these brilliant organisations which are huge and sometimes international or open 24/7. Alongside mentorship, we need to destigmatise and normalise talking about mental health and make a community that is accessible to everyone across all spectrums – from suicide prevention to eating disorders to menopause to parenting.”

Victoria continues to share her thoughts on the damaging notion of ‘hustle culture’. In her experience she shares “sometimes people would leave their jacket on the back of the chair because they want people to know they’re there, or similarly, they would work until 10pm as if that’s an indicator of how hardworking you are. It’s clear from studies that this isn’t productive, and I think that shift is coming. Of course, there’s going to be times when you need to knuckle down to get stuff done but it’s not sustainable, you need to be able to recharge”. Jenni elaborates: "Burnout was only recognised as a global health phenomenon by the World Health Organisation two years ago, [before that], no one knew what it was or how to fix it. It’s all about having boundaries and routines, and some companies are now stepping back to a four-day week which has not had a damaging effect on productivity”. “It’s always disproportionally affected women too, as we think we need to work harder to get a result,” says Victoria, “I hope this flexible working is going to benefit women, especially mothers who feel like they have to put their children to bed then get back on the computer, so people think you’re not slacking. There’s a pressure of feeling like you have to keep up, do better, and prove yourself to compete.”

Victoria Davies.

“When we first started Moving The Needle, we looked at what young people need – education and to understand the sheer scope of opportunity that’s available in the industry,” says Jenni. “It’s about debunking the myths about the rules and opportunities, and by looking at statistics we can examine how to close the gaps. There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t be the next CEO of that dream company if you want to go there”. Victoria continues, “You almost need to see people in the role that you want before you believe that you can get there yourself. So, until women are given more opportunity, it’s going to be hard and there needs to be an education. For example, women rarely know how to ask for pay rises, or men will apply for a job if they meet 50% of a job's criteria whereas women typically wouldn’t unless they meet 90%. It’s an education thing and mentoring women to give them the skills to navigate those situations”.

“It’s about knowing your worth,” Jenni comments, “we were never led to believe that we could go for a role as an A&R director, but with learning and educating others off our own back, we can close that gap. We want women to be confident and feel empowered to know that they can get that job or pay rise or be respected on maternity leave, and if it’s not they’re not getting what they deserve, it’s not the right company. It’s having the confidence to know when to move on. I’ve stayed in jobs before when I’ve been paid too low because I’ve almost been made to believe that I’m not good enough to go elsewhere, and it’s nonsense. You’re strong, you’re skilled and taking that leap is the best thing you can ever do.”

Moving The Needle are generating plans and next steps in its mission to generate a gender-balanced UK music industry. To do this, they want to get to know YOU. Please fill in a brief survey that will help MTN achieve its vision! https://www.mtnnow.com/survey.

More about: Moving The Needle