It’s the end of another year, and here at shesaid.so we are taking a moment to reflect on our progress and all the community events we have enjoyed this year. In turn, we are encouraging all of you to take stock of your achievements this year. However grand, or however seemingly small, we know that all achievements are worth celebrating. So take a moment to be proud.
Here are some of our highlights of the past 12 months. We’d love to hear yours!
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We shared over 140 job postings on our job board.
We launched 4 new chapters in 2021, taking our currently total number of chapters up to 21.
Around the world, our chapters partnered on projects, events, mentorship schemes, panels and more. Highlights include shesaid.so Athens collaborating with Athens Music Week on an Artist showcase and panel; shesaid.so Istanbul chapter x Sisters of Sound; shesaid.so Montréal x Pop Montréal; shesaid.so Portugal x Festival MIL; and shesaid.so Sweden x Malmo Music Conference.
We highlighted more of our inspiring sheaid.so members and friends on our Medium blog, sharing 10 more Member Spotlights and launching a new Artist Spotlight series highlighting 4 awesome artists this year.
Looking for some reading or to get inspired? Read them HERE
We ran 8 Industry Icons this year, a new exclusive opportunity for shesaid.so members, giving attendees the chance to speak to pioneering and inspiring leaders in the music industry.
Guests included legendary artist manager Keith Harris, Soy Kim (Creator Product Marketing, Spotify), DJ and Producer Anja Schneider, Nur Ozdamar (Lead, Artist and Label Development EMEA, YouTube & Google) and more.
Our Instagram account was a hive of activity, where we hosted a full schedule of IG Lives, 40 of which were collaborations with partners.
We learnt something new every week; whether it was a session on “How to Pitch” from PR pros Dawbell, or “5 Tips for Starting a Sustainable Event Journey” with Bye Bye Plastic, we heard from the experts and bettered our skills.
Not only did we learn but we also loved to relax by tuning in to 18 live music sessions on the shesaid.so IG on a Friday, for the perfect wind down (or warm up to the weekend!).
We were treated to sets by Indira May, Eliza Shaddard, Lavaud, Lady Sanity, Elde and more. Thank you so much to our amazing guest artists.
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Moreover, we launched many exciting new collaborations with new industry partners for many worthwhile and enriching projects.
We briefly enjoyed the return of live gigs, as we partnered with War Child UK on their Day of the Girl panel on “Digital and Direct to Fan are Changing the Music Industry” at Abbey Road Studios, plus an evening showcase in London curated by Griff.
MENTORING
Our we.grow/she.grows mentoring programmes continued to thrive this year, running 3 different programmes matching around 180 new mentors and mentees around the world.
We ran the Royal Opera Houses’s first ever mentorship scheme with 14 participants; and we.grow partnered with Keychange in 2021 to pair 144 mentors and mentees from our community — all Keychange participants. In Spain, she.grows Spain partnered with YouTube Music matched 20 mentors and mentees. In addition, we hosted 4 further panels with YouTube Music, including the we.challenge Music Industry Roundtable which you can read about here.
Plus, if you’re anything like us, then 2021 TikTok was a source of learning, laughter and connection with others. We posted 102 videos for our nearly 6k followers.
One particular project we ran with TikTok was a series of “mentor moments” with inspiring personal advice from industry mentors such as Joy Crookes, Kanya King CBE and more. Follow us on TikTok to watch.
IN OCTOBER WE HAD OUR 7TH BIRTHDAY PARTY!
In London we were lucky enough to be able to celebrate our 7th birthday with our members and friends, featuring an amazing guest DJ line-up. Head here to see some of the photos of the night.
shesaid.so 7th birthday party
#ALTLIST2021
Finally, in December we welcomed 100 new names to the Alternative Power 100 Music List 2021, celebrating the New Creative Economy in partnership with Patreon. We loved seeing everyone at our launch brunch in Amsterdam. Missed our panel of experts discussing the New Creative Economy? You can still watch it HERE.
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And what gave us the biggest boost through all the ups and downs this year threw at us? The music.
So get stuck in to some of our music content from the year -
We shared 32 shesaid.so Mixes this year — take a listen here.
And 12 Spotify playlists with 103 different artists over the past 6 months.
Or any of our beautiful IG Live performances by our brilliant artist friends.
The biggest thank you to everyone who continued to make our community so special this year. Thank you to all of our collaborators, guests, speakers, writers, mentors, mentees, chapter teams and everyone who supported us. See you next year.
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