INTERVIEWS Inside the Industry with The WiMN Founder
Laura B. Whitmore By Alison Richter
When music industry veteran Laura Whitmore founded the Women’s International Music Network and its accompanying She Rocks Awards, she did so with a specific goal: to create an online community to unite women in all facets of the music and audio industries. Easier said than done, it would seem, but six years later, the WiMN is thriving and growing. A graduate of Hofstra University, with degrees in marketing and music merchandising, Whitmore’s career began at CBS Records. She spent 20 years at Korg USA before launching her own company, Mad Sun Marketing, in 2008. There, she provides public relations, artist relations, marketing, event production, and much more for music and audio companies. She is also a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Over the course of many years in the music business, Whitmore has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. She knows all too well the challenges that women face in a longstanding maledominated field, and what it’s like to repeatedly hit one’s head on a hard, thick, often impenetrable glass ceiling. That is why she started the WiMN. The organization has grown into a news center, database, and outreach system, offering information, opportunities, contacts, workshops, and of course the annual awards ceremony that takes place every year during the winter NAMM show.
18 Guitar Girl Magazine
Laura Whitmore spoke with Guitar Girl Magazine about the WiMN’s beginning, its milestones, her hopes and plans for the coming years, and why the organization is important to her, both professionally and personally. You founded the Women’s International Music Network in 2012. How have you grown both the network and the She Rocks Awards? When we came into existence in 2012, it was right before we launched the first She Rocks Awards. Our idea for the Network was to bring women in the industry together, and have the awards as a focal point for the conversation about women in music and audio. Since then, we’ve done a few things to grow the organization and the people that we reach. Number one is we’ve interviewed a woman in the industry every week for the last five years. We have almost 300 interviews on our website, and that’s been a great way to share stories, bring people to the
guitargirlmag.com
site, and let them know what we’re doing. We’re super-active on all the social media sites. We have people that handle that for us and share articles, things that women in other organizations are doing, and tips. We also have a lot of other events. None are as big as the She Rocks Awards, but we host panels, we do workshops, we host showcasing events where female artists can perform at bigger events. We have an advisory board that is a team of incredible women and men who have put their brains together to help us reach even further and do even more. That’s been fantastic. That was just put together [in 2017]. We relaunched our website so we can share more news and events and things that are happening for women in music. It’s more of a news site now. Regarding the She Rocks Awards, the first one was in January 2013. It was a breakfast at the Marriott Hotel and had about 200 people attend. Since then, we’ve moved it to an evening event, and it’s got about a thousand
