Shauna Watson
Keychange alum, Shauna Watson became the latest Keychange Inspiration Award winner. Presented at Ireland Music Week 2022 last week by festival director, Angela Dorgan, Shauna is recognised for the breadth of her work that has a lived activism running through it. We are particularly taken by the work Shauna has done as founder of We’ve Only Just Begun - an annual music festival and online Directory profiling 700+ women and gender minority musicians and industry professionals in Ireland!
Photo Credit: Ruth Medjber
Shauna currently works as a Label Manager for artist & label services company The Orchard in London, managing the distribution of a roster of independent record labels. Previously, she worked as a Label & Management Coordinator for Rubyworks, Ireland’s largest Record Label & Management Company (Hozier, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Hudson Taylor, Wyvern Lingo, Irish Women in Harmony). She also worked as a booker and production coordinator for the iconic weekly music night in Dublin The Ruby Sessions and as a production assistant for Dublin music venue Whelan's and Irish promoter MCD. In 2018, Shauna founded ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’, an annual music festival and online Directory profiling 700+ women and gender minority musicians and industry professionals in Ireland. She also founded the Dublin chapter of the organisation shesaid.so, an international network of women working in the music industry and was a participant of the Keychange EU programme 2020/2021.
Awarded at the opening of Irelabd Music Week 2022 , Shauna says,
“It's an absolute honour to be given the Keychange Inspiration Award this year! I was really grateful to receive it at Ireland Music Week, a festival I volunteered at in 2014 so I could learn more about the music industry before I began my career. A lovely full circle moment.”