It began with a music obsession starting at age 5. Music has always been my first love, and I’ve consumed it like a thirsty sponge since I can remember!

I discovered both guitar and music biographies at age 13 and swiftly became a popular music history nerd, which I still revel in to this day. (A passion that is good to no one, except if you happen to find me on your music trivia team.)

I job-hopped into different industries throughout my early 20s until I hit a quarter-life crisis and realised I should only be working in one industry. I enrolled in a music business course the next day.

Through that course, I landed my first music biz job at White Sky Music, bookkeeping for various artists, and assisting Tom Harris in managing The Temper Trap and The Little Stevies. I also dabbled in some other side hustles during this time, managing prog-rock band, The Evening Son and helping Jen Cloher run her ‘I Manage My Music’ workshops.

When life took a sharp turn, and I birthed a couple of kids, I realised I wanted to still work in the industry but create a job that complemented early motherhood. So I started my own freelance financial management business where I collected a handful of clients in the music, arts and not-for-profit sectors whom I absolutely adored working with. These included Jen Cloher, Angie McMahon, Milk! Records, Ainslie Wills, Chunky Move and TLC for kids.

Becoming a mother and working with multiple powerhouse female artists coincided with the 4th-wave of feminism hitting the world, and in turn, the outpour of stories of gender disparity in Australian Music. I could feel the shift starting in our industry around this time and I wanted to be part of the change. I also knew that for real change to happen we had to be patient and play the long game. Quotas and advocacy are much-needed tools, but I realised we need to dedicate time to building up confidence and capability in the next generation of female and gender-diverse artists/industry leaders to ensure real, lasting change. That’s when I discovered and connected with YoWo Music.

YoWo Music is a not-for-profit started back in 2015 by two other powerhouse female musicians, Lena Douglas and Claire Cross. Frustrated with their common career stories of sexism and being two of the only female instrumentalists in their tertiary jazz courses, they created a mentor-led band program for female and gender-diverse teens.

YoWo Music’s ethos is “you need to see it, to be it”. We encourage our young participants to pursue careers in music by providing professional female and non-binary mentors, sound engineers, guest artists and producers, as well as multiple opportunities for them to develop their songwriting, stagecraft and recording prowess.

When I reached out to Claire and Lena in late 2020 to see how I could help, they told me they were on the hunt for a General Manager to take over YoWo. They were both ready to step away from the organisation and pursue music careers overseas. So, after a few false starts from the 2021 lockdowns, I now run YoWo Music with the help of Program Manager (and spectacular multi-instrumentalist) Selene Messinis.

My role at YoWo is beautifully organised chaos. Each day is a mish-mash of emails and phone calls and meetings and marketing and fundraising and program development and strategic planning and operations and finance and organisational governance.

I also always try to menstrual-map my work week by delegating non-time-sensitive tasks to the most efficient time in my cycle. (If you menstruate and are curious about menstrual mapping – check out Lucy Peach’s book/podcast ‘Period Queen’ – total game changer!).

Absolutely not. Everyone I’ve met in this industry has their own unique journey of getting here. In saying that, studying music business at uni definitely fast-tracked my knowledge of how the industry is structured and how different music revenue streams work. But working hard and smart, making connections, helping people and being a decent person that others want to help is far more important, I believe.

I think the biggest challenge of my career was working out how to navigate motherhood and a career I was passionate about. This has become easier a decade into the journey but I still dance the line to balance it all.

It’s been fabulous watching the conversation around this balancing act open up in the industry in recent times. It is an important conversation for all genders – parents and non-parents – to have in the workplace.

I feel I’ve been so fortunate in my career thus far in that I’ve loved and learned from every boss and client I’ve had.

I’ve been lucky enough to work closely with music manager Charlotte Abroms for several years, and I’ve always appreciated her holistic approach to working in this sometimes unforgiving industry. From her, I’ve learned to value kindness and mental health in music, which isn’t always easy in this industry built on micro-businesses and solo-preneurs fending for themselves. However it’s something I always try to uphold, and Charlotte has definitely been a role model in this way.

Kee’ahn. I fell in love with Kee’ahn’s voice and music in 2019 and have been fangirling ever since. Every time I hear her voice my whole body relaxes and feels nice fuzzy tingles. I’m anxiously waiting to hear more from her.

Folk Bitch Trio. Heide and Jeanie from FBT are YoWo Music alumni, and they formed FBT shortly after participating in the YoWo band program. The first time I saw them perform they completely blew me away, what a stunning sound! Another band that I can see having a great career, and can’t wait to hear what they do next.

Gabriella Cohen. Gabriella is fairly established but I am loving where her music is going at the moment. Her most recent album Blue No More is all killer, no filler and was my soundtrack to last summer. Looking forward to hearing the next instalment of tunes!

We’re developing some exciting new programs and projects at YoWo for our young cohort which we will start rolling out next year. YoWo has also recently received charity status, which is super exciting! So I will be focusing on fundraising and building our ambassadorship program so we can grow and reach more young musicians. If you’re reading this and interested in helping out in some way, please get in touch!

Well, there are A LOT of moments I’d prefer to forget! All those cringey moments pile up when you’re fumbling around and learning new things for the first time. But those moments were all necessary evils so I could grow and be challenged in my career. (I just need to remind myself of that when I mess up in the future!)

I think my greatest achievement is finding this current role at YoWo where I’m able to marry my two big passions, music and feminism. I feel honoured and deeply grateful to be able to spend my life creating something I know will make a difference for the next generation of female and gender diverse musicians.

As I said earlier, I’ve been lucky to work with amazingly supportive people for my career and feel like I’ve had champions the entire way. But my constant champion has always been my partner, Hadley. What a gem. He has always had my back, reminding me how capable I am and making sure I aim for the stars, even when I don’t think I can. If you ever see him, buy that man a drink.

There is always time for play!

Hell yes. When I was spiralling into multiple breakdowns during lockdown from having no space or time alone, I created something I now like to call my ‘sacred hour’.

It involves waking up an hour before the rest of my household, making a ridiculously strong coffee, snuggling into the couch under a blankey and writing ‘morning pages’ à la Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artist’s Way’. No phone within reach. Just writing and silence and staring into space for one glorious hour a day.

It doesn’t always happen but I notice a significant difference in my demeanour on the days I do it, so I always try to make it a priority.

Is this pre or post-pandemic?!? Very different worlds!!

I think the music industry feels it has different boundary rules compared to most industries. Boundaries are always a juggling act when ‘work days’ can include all hours of the night and weekends, sometimes with touring, and almost always with drinking involved.

And when you include sharing the parenting of 2 young kids with someone else who also works in the music industry, life/work balance can look interesting!

The silver lining of the Melbourne lockdowns is I am much more firm with my work/life boundaries since we’ve opened back up. I watched home and work bleed utterly into each other for two years and now I NEVER want my life to look like that again!

Movement always helps. I am also a big fan of the 20-min power nap to re-energise.

If either of these fail, I listen old skool rock’n’roll in my headphones- my secret guilty pleasure. Little Richard is Red Bull in song form.

Anything The Beatles. Any excuse to sing Beatles songs.