Veteran music agent Cheryl Paglierani, who has helped guide the live careers of artists such as Post Malone, 21 Savage and Dominic Fike, has joined CAA.

Paglierani joins the company’s global touring department from UTA, where she most recently served as a partner. She has played a pivotal role in the rise of clients including 21 Savage, who sold more than 140,000 tickets for his recent 30-date North American amphitheatre tour and will be headlining a number of European festivals this summer.

She has also worked with Post Malone from early in his career and throughout his development to becoming a worldwide superstar.

“We are thrilled to welcome Cheryl to CAA,” say Darryl Eaton & Rick Roskin, co-heads of global touring. “Cheryl has a deep understanding of artists and how they envision their careers, and she brings the expertise and tenacity to help make them a reality. Her acumen, experience, and character will make her an outstanding member of our team.”

Los Angeles-based Paglierani served a stint at CAA, as well as William Morris, earlier in her career and went on to work for The Agency Group prior to its acquisition by UTA in 2015.

“It’s an incredible feeling to return to CAA,” says Paglierani. “I’m excited to work with this extremely talented and driven team. I’ve been lucky to call so many of them friends for years and can’t wait to hit the ground running together.”

CAA, whose touring clients include The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, Katy Perry, Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, Blink-182, Kelsea Ballerini, Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, has booked more than 38,000 shows over the last year.

“Cheryl is highly respected in the music industry for her ability to identify and elevate emerging talent and foster the careers of superstars”

“Cheryl is highly respected in the music industry for her ability to identify and elevate emerging talent and foster the careers of superstars,” says CAA’s co-chair and CEO Bryan Lourd. “Today’s announcement underscores the strength and momentum of CAA’s touring business and also speaks to the agency’s ongoing commitment to helping develop the careers of next-generation artists.”

Separately, the agency has named Elizabeth A Morrison as its first global head of inclusion, recruiting and development.

In her new position, she will lead the teams overseeing ongoing inclusion efforts, learning and development, in addition to recruiting programs across the agency’s offices and divisions.

“We are thrilled to have Elizabeth join us,” says CAA co-chair Richard Lovett, as per Deadline. “We always prioritise the development of our colleagues and an inclusive environment within our walls and beyond. Elizabeth’s professional experiences and expertise will further bolster CAA as a professional home where people of all backgrounds can be inspired daily, grow their careers, and best serve our clients.”

Morrison’s past roles include chief diversity, equity & inclusion officer and VP global talent management at Levi Strauss, having previously overseen diversity & belonging at Live Nation.

“I have long admired CAA for its highly regarded focus on collaboration and community, and for the agency’s deep and optimistic belief in what’s possible for employees and clients,” adds Morrison. “I am passionate about championing experiences that allow individuals to present their full and best selves within the workplace, and look forward to joining my new partners on this ever-evolving journey.”

Read IQ’s latest feature about how live music firms are diversifying the workforce here.

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Yourope has developed and released the 3F Diversity & Inclusion Toolset for the European festival sector.

The toolset, which is free to use for any festival or cultural event, is a curated collection of resources that can help festival organisers make their event more diverse and inclusive for fans, artists and staff.

It forms part of the European festival association’s three-year project, Future-Fit Festivals (3F). Resources include guides, tests, checklists, interviews, databases, other toolkits, roadmaps, reports, games and action plans.

Chapters are dedicated to: Accessibility & Inclusion, Anti-Racism Work & Diversity, Gender & Sexual Equity, Consciousness & Responsibility, Allyship and good-practice stories. The team has also assembled a glossary. In addition, there is a ‘Diversity Mission Statement’ that festivals are free to copy and adapt to their own event. The toolset can be found here.

“When we talk to festival organisers about diversity at their events, we sometimes hear that they would like to do more, but they don’t know where to start. They’re afraid of doing something wrong, saying the wrong thing, and the potential backlash that might cause, so they don’t touch the topic,” says Yourope’s Katharina Weber, contributor and editor of the toolset.

“If your festival is already doing great, but you’d like to get inspiration and ideas to do even better, this is for you”

“With this toolset, we give festival organisers a chance to fight this insecurity. It’s a place to start their diversity journey. Our project team did the research and assessed many resources on accessible, diverse and equal events, so festival organisers don’t have to do it. On top, we hope to inspire them with our stories about good-practice examples from festivals that show how more diversity and inclusion can be achieved.”

The toolset is the result of a collaboration of experts from the Yourope network such as Roskilde Festival (DK), Primavera Sound (ES), Flow Festival (FI), Höme – Für Festivals (DE), Open’er Festival (PL) and OpenAir St.Gallen (CH), supported by an advisory board of external experts from different countries and backgrounds. Their tasks were to check the team’s unconscious biases and to ensure that the texts are representative of the groups of people this toolset is dedicated to.

“Something stuck with me after a short conversation with the awareness team at Reeperbahn Festival in 2023,” adds Yourope board member Marta Pallarès, head of press at Primavera Sound and co-developer of the toolset. “They handed me a little sticker, a perfect form of a circle made with these words: ‘It’s a process it’s a process it’s a process.’ And indeed, making our festivals better, safer, more diverse and more inclusive is a process: the more you know, the more you realise the things you still don’t.

“And if you are just getting introduced to these concepts, finding where to start can feel overwhelming, even if you might sense that the moment to begin is now. This is the main goal of our toolset: if your festival is already doing great, but you’d like to get inspiration and ideas to do even better, this is for you. And if you want to start somewhere but you don’t know how, this is for you as well.”

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Top agents called for a more diverse, inclusive and equitable industry during last week’s ESNS (Eurosonic Noorderslag).

Hannah Shogbola (UTA), Natasha Gregory (Mother Artists), Sally Dunstone (Primary Talent International) and Whitney Boateng (WME) came together for the all-female Agents Panel – hailed as “a long-overdue milestone” by moderator Maria May (CAA).

“We are representing the change we want to see,” said May during her opening gambit for the digital session. “I believe the music industry has a duty to continue to strive forward post-pandemic be even more progressive, more inclusive, and representative of the world that we live in.”

However, WME’s Boateng says there’s a “lot more work that needs to be done in the industry”. “It is still predominantly old white male and it has been for years,” she added. “Change has to come from the top-down and it has to be more than black squares.”

UTA’s Shogbola agreed: “If you are looking around your office and it does not reflect the society that you live in and the roster that you look after, then there is something categorically wrong.”

Black squares were posted on social media as part of the music industry’s Blackout Tuesday movement, a protest against racism and police brutality in response to the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.

“As a black woman within this industry, it’s frustrating that even 15-20 years into my career, it takes the death of somebody like George Floyd for our industry to finally open its eyes,” said Shogbola.

“The industry has a duty to be even more progressive, more inclusive, and representative of the world that we live in”

Boateng pointed out that it’s not just racial inequalities that the industry needs to fix but also disparities around sexuality and gender, with the panel unanimously agreeing that diversity on line-ups is still “not good enough”.

“It’s so important that when anybody is going to a show, they feel like it’s a safe and inclusive space for them,” said Dunstone.

Elsewhere during the panel, Mother Artists’ Gregory says that flexibility towards employees’ work hours will also be a key feature in a more equitable post-pandemic industry.

“Working 9–5 is not equality because everybody has a different situation, a different experience and different needs,” argued Gregory. “Being an agent is not a 9–5 anyway so just put trust in your team – working hard is a given in this industry.”

Dunstone agreed: “Adaptability and flexibility are massive takeaways from the last two years. Hopefully, we’ll pick and choose the bits of [pandemic life] that worked for us.”

The 36th edition of ESNS took place under the banner ‘Building Back Better, Together’ and focussed on getting the industry back on its feet after two years of the pandemic.

The hybrid conference and festival wrapped on Friday (21 January) and Dago Houben, director of ESNS said that “despite the fact that there is definitely screen fatigue, we were able to perform our platform function for the national and international music industry.

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Impala, the umbrella body which represents music companies and associations across Europe, has appointed UK-based equality campaigner Vick Bain and Arit Eminue to provide diversity and inclusion training to its members.

Bain, who has been confirmed for ILMC session Gender Equality: The Next Level, is a diversity trainer, campaigner and PhD researcher, as well as a qualified equality, diversity and inclusion consultant.

Last year, she officially launched the F-List, a directory of UK female and non-binary musicians to be used by promoters, festival bookers, commissioners, music supervisors.

Arit Eminue of Diva Apprenticeships has also been appointed, alongside Bain, to provide diversity training for Impala’s 5,000+ members on a three-year contract.

“This is an exciting opportunity to spread awareness and knowledge on the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the music industry”

The pair have already held two training sessions for Impala’s diversity task force. The first training session for members is set for 27 January.

The appointments follow Impala’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter, published last October, which lays out 12 commitments towards promoting diversity and inclusion among independent music companies. This includes making diversity and conscious inclusion training available twice a year to all members.

“Working with Impala and its membership across Europe is an exciting opportunity to spread awareness and knowledge on the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the music industry,” says Bain.

Arit Eminue added: “I look forward to helping Imapala’s members achieve their diversity and inclusion goals and providing practical tips on how they can drive change. So much can be done by making simple changes to start with.”

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United Talent Agency (UTA) has announced a series of internal initiatives aimed at further increasing diversity and inclusion across the agency globally.

The actions – which are accompanied by a donation of US$1 million to organisations fighting for social justice – are the result of “efforts in recent weeks, led by leaders, colleagues of colour and allies across UTA, to have candid and thoughtful dialogue about the internal steps necessary to make meaningful and sustainable progress toward a more equitable community”, according to the agency, which has offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Nashville and Miami.

Referencing the recent movement towards greater ethnic diversity in the music industry, UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer explains: “The past few weeks have shown that we must address the pace in which we’ve approached our diversity and inclusion efforts. It’s our responsibility to move forward with immediacy to ensure change happens, as a company and as individuals.

“I am incredibly grateful to my colleagues who stepped up and spoke truth to power. They are making UTA an even better place to work and helping drive true and meaningful progress well beyond our four walls.”

The $1m financial commitment will be provided over four years, and overseen by the nonprofit UTA Foundation.

“We are putting our stake in the ground publicly to hold ourselves accountable”

The new internal initiatives, meanwhile, include:

• Observing ‘Juneteenth’ as an annual holiday and closing all US offices on that day
• Increasing representation of people of colour throughout UTA, including senior-level positions (as demonstrated by the recent promotion of agents Chelsea McKinnies and Emerson Davis to partners)
• Unconscious bias training for all UTA employees
• A commitment to increasing wages for assistants and other entry-level staff, to be implemented over time
• Actively pursuing and considering candidates of colour for every available position
• Creating a specialised, identity-based mentoring programme for employees of colour
• Reshaping the agent training programme to focus on increasing retention and promotion of employees of colour and other “underrepresented” colleagues
• Creation of an internal leadership council comprising a “diverse coalition of colleagues from all levels” to influence company culture and policy

Additionally, Project Impact, which sees the agency close for a ‘day of action’ on community projects, will this year focus solely on issues of social justice and racial inequality.

UTA’s executive director of inclusion, Shanique Bonelli-Moore, says: “We believe diverse backgrounds and life experiences influence positive perspectives and great storytelling, yielding broader opportunities for our clients. Much of this work is already underway.

“It won’t all happen overnight. But we are putting our stake in the ground publicly to hold ourselves accountable and are implementing systems to sustain urgency as we pursue lasting change.”

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