Women in audio A roundtable exploring the role of women in audio demonstrated that they can not only survive but thrive once those opportunities unlock. Ledetta Asfa-Wossen reports
The Panel ADEOLA AKINYEMI, Showgear SHERIN DSOUZA, PRG/Delta Sound RANA EID, db Studios ESTELLE GALLOWAY, NYU Abu Dhabi MARIA KYVERNITIS, MEI JENN LIANG-CHABOUD, Shure ALICE MACALUSO, Freelance HANAN MAHMOUD, MBC Group MINAL PAPALKAR, Panacor SANA ROMANOS, Fida Zalloum STACEY THOMAS, PRG/Delta Sound
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Women in audio With a global AV market ESTIMATED TO EXCEED $325 billion by 2024 (AVIXA) comes increased job opportunities and richer career options. But, according to the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM), less than 5% of people helping to create sound, music and media in our lives are women. Sheltered from Dubai’s oppressive humidity, impassioned members of the industry wiped the mist off their glasses and gathered at the Shure MEA HQ to discuss experiences, opportunities and challenges. Offering a West African perspective, Showgear’s COO Adeola Akinyemi highlighted the demand for pro audio and some of the pinch points from a geographical position. ‘The market in Nigeria is growing fast. And it’s growing because of the kind of community that we have – the biggest consumers of pro audio in Nigeria are churches. We have roughly 100,000 churches so there’s a huge market but, unfortunately, not one university in Nigeria offers audio engineering as a course and people have to train outside to serve it,’ explains Akinyemi. ‘A few companies, like us, are offering training to get people into the field. It’s still a male-dominated area – for every one female audio engineer you might have 150 male engineers – but there are women who are breaking into it. We just need to get together, offer more encouragement and get them trained.’ Hopeful about the evolving role of women in AV, Akinyemi noted some initiatives that have already gained traction in harnessing audio engineering talent. ‘There’s now a group called Audio Girl Africa, aimed at women between the ages of 18 and 25 that trains those interested in audio engineering. We support the initiative at Showgear and some programmes include flexible all-night training. In fact, they’re always looking for teachers and companies who can offer their expertise,’ says Akinyemi. ‘The opportunity for women is there because it’s such a large market and I think the playing field is actually relatively level. Nigeria also has a huge film industry, so there’s a large demand for engineers in that area. You’ll get the odd comment that you can’t lift this or do that, but I see women challenging that norm with their ability and passion which is shifting the status quo,’ she adds. ‘We have women working in live sound, broadcast, production and more in retail and wholesale. In my city, I might be maybe one of 10 women running a business, but we know that women are powerful with great attention to detail, so it’s just a matter
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‘ Starting out in live is
hard for everyone. It’s not an easy job and it’s demanding mentally and physically ’
of time before that trickles further into the audio market.’ A mixed room of talent, including engineers to film sound designers, integrators, broadcasters and business owners, illustrated the breadth of roles available to women in audio that go well beyond marketing and HR – even when there is no industry present to start with.
Triumph in Beirut Rana Eid, a film sound designer based in Lebanon, decided to establish db Studios from the ground up but first she had to build an industry. ‘When I was at university in Beirut, there weren’t really any films being produced or any sound designers. I always wanted to create sound. I tried live but I preferred working in a quieter studio environment,’ she says. ‘I went to Paris to study sound design and returned to Beirut. I couldn’t work with some of the production companies in Lebanon as they had a very different way of working so I set up a studio in Beirut with three partners and now we are nine. They all work as freelancers because I refuse to be rigid. When they want to leave, they will leave. We share the decision-making process because when you’re horizontal you are more elastic and you grow faster. In Beirut, we didn’t have mixing auditoriums to finish the films, so we had to keep travelling out to do it. Two years ago, we decided to get a business loan and invest in our own mixing facility and, over the last year and a half, we’ve put out 22 films.’
Women in audio When you’re working in the MEA region, you can’t afford to be stuck in your ways, notes Eid. ‘For me, working in this industry has always been a necessity and a passion, not a job. We’re still the only film sound design company in Beirut but we’re growing, and we have lots of freelancers working with us now so we’re building a business, and a community.’ Eid is not the only one who has blazed her own trail. Live sound engineer Sana Romanos, who worked for one of the largest rental companies in the region, Fida Zalloum, now works as a Beirut-based freelancer and has been a monitor engineer for a number of shows, including the Roskilde Festival. ‘Starting out in live is hard for everyone. It’s not an easy job and it’s demanding mentally and physically. Being a woman starting out in Beirut was tricky to begin with because
‘ Interestingly, if women
are touring, they’re either A2s or monitors. I rarely see a woman in a FOH position and I don’t really know why that is ’
people were not used to that scenario and me being able to handle a mixer on my own, but being a woman can play to your advantage. I had a big spotlight on me and, if you prove yourself under that, you can grow a reputation for yourself very, very fast. So, for me, it was a plus,’ says Romanos. ‘As a sound engineer, you just want to do a good job, male or female. If you do it just as good as the guy next to you, your ability will be seen,’ elaborates Estelle Galloway, a South African sound engineer working at NYU Abu Dhabi. ‘It’s about asking what kind of engineer you are and doing a great job every time. If someone says “you can’t lift that”, I’ll just outlift them, as that’s the sort of person I am. It’s not so much a gender issue as it is character – and I like to prove them wrong.’ Hailing from San Francisco, Shure’s Jenn Liang-Chaboud, who manages artist and entertainment relations for the manufacturer, candidly described altering perceptions of women in the industry during her career. ‘I’ve moved through a few different roles. My first role involved working with software, keyboards, MIDI and timecode and I don’t think anyone cared at all. Working in live is a little different though, in the way you get reacted to and reminded of the physical aspect. San Francisco is easier in many respects as it’s rooted in tech. I’m also walking in the door with a Shure logo on my shirt so there’s some expectation that I belong there, which I wouldn’t say is necessarily true when I freelance. A lot of what I do is about fixing problems. So, if your installation has an issue or your production has problems, I’m coming in to fix something and, depending on the team for that and the engineer, it’s often about striking a
Minal Papalkar, Panacor
balance.’ However, Liang-Chaboud is keen to stress that once you reach a certain level, like any job in any industry, women are assumed their rightful place. ‘I will say that, depending on the level of production, if you are hired and you are working on that show, it’s assumed that you should be there and I don’t see much pushback. If you’re walking into a major award show as a woman, you have your credentials. I wouldn’t say that was true eight years ago. The first ever major sports broadcast I attended on behalf of Shure, someone asked whose wife I was. I think each market really differs though. I see a lot more women in recording, less women in live and more women in broadcast versus touring. Interestingly, if women are touring, they’re either A2s or monitors. I rarely see a woman in a FOH position and I don’t really know why that is. I’d love to know why. There’s a demand for women A2s to work with female talent.’
Knowledge is power In addition, Liang-Chaboud alludes that the convergence of AV and IT will help level the playing field even further as education in the face of a technology shift becomes the great equaliser. ‘With the amount of tech changes we’ve had lately from analogue to digital, you now have a set of people that are wondering if you’ve risen to the occasion and updated your learning. Before all this, audio hadn’t really changed a whole lot from a tech standpoint and now the pace of change is so quick, especially with IT. Suddenly, there’s a whole new batch of talent that has a completely different level of qualification that’s necessary for what technology is right now. And I think that’s giving everyone an opportunity to step up.’ One resounding theme was the lack of awareness of audio
Sherin Dsouza, PRG/Delta Sound
Rana Eid, db Studios
Alice Macaluso, Freelance
Stacey Thomas, PRG/Delta Sound
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Women in audio being a viable career path, with many wishing they’d known about the professional options sooner. ‘I wish I’d known earlier that an audio career was a thing. My Dad was keen on me doing business or business engineering as he thought I wouldn’t find a job otherwise, but I knew I loved music. I don’t really know how I would have got the exposure to the role I do now as I didn’t go to concerts and pro audio wasn’t an area any of my family worked in. For me, a job in sound meant you’re either a performer or a music teacher. It’s when I was researching colleges to become a music educator that I came across a music engineering degree in Miami. I thought, this says “music” and it says “engineering” – I can do this. It was the stupidest rationale as I had no awareness. I just thought, I can get away with this and still be involved in music, but it turned out great,’ comments Liang-Chaboud.
‘ Suddenly, there’s a whole
new batch of talent that has a completely different level of qualification that’s necessary for what technology is right now. And I think that’s giving everyone an opportunity to step up ’
‘I started my career at 22, so I’ve been in the industry for 18 years. I’ve been a site engineer and AV systems designer and then moved over to sales and marketing and I’ve never felt a gender issue,’ recalls Indian-born Minal Papalkar, a pre-sales engineer at AV integration company Panacor in Dubai.
The late-morning session took a more detailed look at nurturing talent through education. Topics included certification and alternative routes into the industry, as well as the importance of audio training platforms such as the Shure Audio Institute (SAI). ‘I’ve been working with the SAI for a while and one of the things that I’m thankful for is how much free education Shure puts out there because they want people to have the expertise and the technology. We see a lot of people come to our wireless seminars because frequency coordination is frequency coordination and, ultimately, we just want your show to work. We had an engineer seminar recently with lots of live sound people and it’s hard to get people in from all over. There are so few women in the industry,
so many of those sessions will have only men in the room. How do we improve our outreach and foster more talent? I think we also need to ask people how they want to consume an audio education. Should it be more about online videos and YouTube training? Do people even need to be certified to coordinate a show? Those are all questions we’re asking as a manufacturer,’ elaborates Liang-Chaboud. With the scarcity of specialist audio courses available in the MEA region, practical experience almost becomes king, argues Galloway. ‘At 12, I knew what I wanted to do the minute I saw my first console. When I was looking to study in South Africa, there weren’t really any audio schools there and this was 2010. I was looking overseas and thinking I had to go to the US to study sound. With the curriculum in South Africa, you start making your creative decisions at 15 and technical is not even a subject, but music is. Some schools allow kids to work on a stage production but not all communities have that type of school or the funding. I took music and worked on school productions and got exposure to the industry at a grassroots level. I think that’s the first problem we need to tackle as an industry, cultivating that interest at schools – with theatre, music and culture shows and exposing young people to the technical side. Then from there, start looking at degrees because it means nothing without experience. It’s also about instilling them with a work ethic. I worked for free for a year because I thought this is the only way I’m really going to learn.’ Another hurdle for some, states Galloway, is that education is expensive. She mentions a case at a technical production and crewing company where they’d send young people from rural areas to their clients as ‘box pushers’ to experience the industry from an entry level. ‘From then, we’d take them under our wing and send them to a Shure or Dante workshop and they’d gain the support of senior engineers but it all costs money.’ Events technology company PRG/Delta Sound is already doing
Hanan Mahmoud, MBC Group
Sana Romanos, Fida Zalloum
Jenn Liang-Chaboud, Shure
Dubai-based broadcast sound engineer, Hanan Mahmoud of MBC Group, shared how a work experience stint opened her eyes to the plethora of jobs available to her in broadcast. After studying mass communications, she started working at a radio station as a production assistant. ‘It was only there that I realised there were no women around and no female sound engineers, but I didn’t understand why. I moved to a TV station and loved it and started working as a sound engineer, and now I work mainly on the news side.’ The power of working groups such as Women in Live and WAM was also highlighted as well as the potential need for one in the Middle East. Despite some challenges, all attendees were resolute in the fact that being a woman in audio didn’t present them with obstacles, with around a quarter saying it was an advantage.
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Maria Kyvernitis, MEI
‘Unless you presume leadership and take the reins, you won’t be successful no matter who you are. The key is to become comfortable with the requirements of the job. You have to gain that technical knowledge and master the vocabulary of the industry you work in.’
Education matters
Adeola Akinyemi, Showgear
Estelle Galloway, NYU Abu Dhabi
Women in audio this type of outreach. ‘Locally here in Dubai, we team up with the SAE Institute and get interns in as working freelancers during the summer and they get first-hand production experience,’ adds marketing coordinator, Stacey Thomas. Maria Kyvernitis, who owns and manages Dubai-based backline rental company MEI, suggested that when it comes to the UAE, the responsibility to develop audio talent lay with companies. ‘The UAE has matured a lot over the last 30 years but it’s still a young country. I’m sure awareness of audio as a career will grow as the country does but, in many ways, it starts with us. We’re currently trialling a programme at schools to get young people interested in music and professional equipment as we have a student rental division that hires out pro audio to students and schools.’ Despite work still needing to be done, some attendees said that, in many ways, it’s getting easier to expose young people to a career in audio as the cost point is much lower. ‘When I was a kid, you couldn’t easily acquire music software or a console and computers were expensive. So, if it wasn’t in your school, you didn’t see it. Now, there’s a plethora of free software, if you buy an Apple device you have Garage band on it – all that stuff just didn’t exist back then,’ adds Liang-Chaboud. www.shure.com
Q&
supply chain and manufacturing, as well as quality. This was another essential experience as I was able to work with passionate people all around the world dedicated to making great products that solved problems for our customers. In 2006, I went to lead global marketing and sales, where I managed three business units in the Americas, EMEA and APAC. All this experience helped me learn more about the overall company operations, the global business structure and what we need to do to meet the evolving needs of customers. Having diverse experience within different parts of the company has given me an appreciation that not all CEOs are lucky enough to have.
Q&A with Shure CEO, Christine Schyvinck
Shure has more software engineers than ever before. Does the convergence of AV and IT mean more opportunity?
You come from a mechanical engineering background. What should the industry do to harness more talent? At what age should that start? Women play an important role in the future of technology and it’s never too early to start thinking about that career path. I think you have to reach girls when they are in junior or middle school. They need to start thinking about classes in school and organisations they want to join. There are now so many schools and community organisations providing opportunities for young kids to get involved with STEM but, if that awareness doesn’t hit them early, they won’t sign up or they might be intimidated. As an industry, we should always be looking at ways we can be more involved in getting kids interested in our fields.
Christine Schyvinck
on local market needs and how to grow in those regions. Diversity in industry backgrounds, from the tech sector, musicians and audio engineers, is also important. We embrace all diversity because it helps us understand our diverse set of customers.
You’ve said that diversity has a positive impact on the bottom line for AV You’ve been at Shure for 30 years. How companies. Can you elaborate on that? do you stay fresh in the game? McKinsey did a study a few years back called Diversity Matters. The facts are there – companies that have more diversity on their teams perform better financially. And I’ve seen that change at Shure having been here for so long. We used to make products for the customers and conventions we knew in the US, and then we’d export those products to other parts of the world. We now have associates working in more than 30 countries. This gives us a much better handle
I firmly believe it’s important to experience new things in an organisation. Starting off my career as a quality control engineer, I was exposed to learning about the types of issues sound professionals encounter daily and making sure that our equipment was reliable and always ready for the show. I then moved from the vice president of quality to vice president of operations, where I managed procurement,
More and more business is being conducted virtually, so having the right audio conferencing equipment – and support – is essential. We understand that the growing number of devices, end points and locations created by AV conferencing creates another huge responsibility for IT departments, so we are actively engaged with customers to provide solutions that make those connections feel effortless. Software management is an important area and we are continually providing solutions and upgrades to our software management tools. As we grow in this area, we’re looking to add more talented software engineers to the team.
Lastly, what makes a good CEO? Being a strong business leader means listening. I work with so many talented people that help keep me informed of current business conditions and upcoming trends. I’ve found that having trust in your leadership and listening is the best way forward.
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