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PPL partners with Action For Diversity & Development
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 23 February 2022
UK record industry collecting society PPL and an organisation called Action For Diversity & Development has announced a partnership that will “help tackle underrepresentation at senior levels in the music industry and support those with protected characteristics – particularly race, gender, disability and religion – who are not progressing within organisations”.
Although there are now lots of great schemes and programmes seeking to encourage and enable more diversity in the music industry – both on stage and behind the scenes – there is, of course, still lots more to be done, including looking at how people progress to the top of music companies, where there is often a particular lack of diversity.
Under the new partnership with ADD – which launched in 2020 as an evolution of the Alliance For Diversity In Music & Media – PPL will provide funding, while ADD will support the collecting society “in ensuring there are no barriers to opportunity for staff from underrepresented groups”. Among other things, it will provided training, mentoring and assistance recruiting for senior management roles, for PPL itself, and others in the music industry.
Announcing the partnership, PPL’s Chief People Officer Kate Reilly says: “ADD brings together a team of experienced industry leaders, renowned in their own areas of expertise and also respected for the years of work they have put in to making the music industry a fairer place for all”.
“PPL recognises that there is more that needs to be done”, she goes on. “We hope that, by providing financial support to the organisation, ADD can support as many skilled professionals from underrepresented backgrounds as possible and lay the groundwork for more diverse leadership teams in the near future both within PPL and the wider UK music industry”.
Meanwhile, ADD Director Danny Poku – also Co-Founder of Stellar Songs – adds: “On behalf of the ADD team I would like to thank Chief Executive Officer Peter Leathem, Kate Reilly, and Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Partner Tomi Oyewumi from PPL, for not only supporting our drive to bring parity to black and brown people in the creative industry but for their support in taking this major first step with us on our journey to effect real ‘change’”.
“We know there is a long way to go”, he continues, “and how critical it is to ensure that equity stays front of mind when the media noise relents, but this is an important start”.
