Change the Conversation, Digital Divas Present Summit On Building An Artist Team

Change the Conversation and Digital Divas Nashville have joined forces to present a one-day summit, “How to Build a Successful Artist Team,” on Saturday, Sept. 28. The event will be held from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Registration is $50 and available at digitaldivasnashville.com.

A highlight of the event will be an intimate conversation with songwriter/producer Nicolle Galyon about her career and discussion of her career team from an artist’s perspective. Galyon is president of Songs and Daughters, a female-focused record label. She has also written hits for Miranda Lambert (“Automatic,” “Platinum”), Keith Urban (“We Were Us,” “Female”), Lee Brice (“Boy”), Dan + Shay (“Tequila”), Kenny Chesney (“All the Pretty Girls”) and many more.

“This event was realized from the frequent questions that both Change the Conversation and Digital Divas were fielding from our membership,” says Tracy Gershon, co-founder of Change the Conversation. “The collaboration between our two organizations is a great way to educate and inspire young artists and help them on their road to putting together their team.”

The morning session will allow participants to ask questions of industry leaders including: Abbey Adams, independent publisher, writer-producer and manager; Cyndi Forman, Universal Music Publishing Group; Fletcher Foster, president/CEO of F2 Entertainment Group; Cris Lacy, executive vice president of A&R for Warner Music Nashville; Trisha McClanahan, owner of McClanahan Management; Bev Moser, owner of B! Noticed Public Relations; Tiff Shipp, owner of Tiff Shipp PR; and Stephanie Wright, senior vice president of A&R for UMG Nashville.

The luncheon panel will focus on talent agencies and feature Creative Artists Agency’s Shannon Casey and Meredith Jones, as well as William Morris Endeavor’s Abby Wells Baas and EVAmore co-founder Makenzie Stokel.

“Now more than ever, artists can take control of all aspects of their career and no longer have to rely solely on others to get their music to the public,” says Cameo Carlson, co-founder of Digital Divas Nashville. “However, it can be a mysterious maze to those who don’t understand the system, so we want to educate the participants about the online and distribution worlds.”

The afternoon’s session will feature information from distributors and digital streaming platforms, including Casey Childers, project manager/artist marketing at ONErpm; Randall Foster, Nashville Symphonic Distribution vice president of business development and general manager; Shelby Kennedy, vice president of entertainment relations at TuneCore; Mary Catherine Kinney, artist and label marketing at Spotify; Jay Liepis, Apple Music Artist and Label Relations; Kelly Rich, Amazon senior label relations manager; Janet Rubin, manager of Apple Music Artist Relations; and Alina Thompson, artist marketing and industry relations at Pandora.

“One of the biggest questions and obstacles that artists have in order to move forward is their team,” said Change the Conversation co-founder Leslie Fram. “Along with Digital Divas, we wanted to create a summit to answer these questions and learn from the best in our industry.”