At this year's Women In Music Awards, we celebrated the achievements of 13 game-changing executives and artists as the industry came together to honour their work. Music Week has spoken to all 13 winners to tell their stories.
Words: Colleen Harris
Two years ago, Lorna Clarke told Music Week what fires her drive to succeed the most.
“I’ve had loads of jobs that didn’t exist before and you have to go and make it your own,” she said. “Being a female programme director at KISS, I was properly in a man’s world, so there’s something about my brain that draws me to that sort of stuff. But being able to say to an artist, ‘Come to the BBC and help us make something that adds to your legacy,’ you up the ante and I love it. That’s the bit that motivates me.”
Now, Clarke is celebrating her latest success: being crowned winner of the Outstanding Contribution honour at the Music Week Women In Music Awards 2024. This landmark achievement follows her induction onto the Roll Of Honour in 2019, and the BBC’s director of music says the event holds a special place in the industry.
“I'm always struck by how different it is to every other industry awards,” says Clarke. “It sounds cheesy, but you're in that room and it's just full of warmth and love and support.”
Clarke spent many of her early years in the business working in commercial radio. She joined KISS as programme director in 1990, before departing for the BBC in 1997, where she served as Radio 1’s head of mainstream programmes and launched the Sara Cox breakfast show. Clarke was head of programmes at 1Xtra until 2009.
Switching to BBC Television, from 2003 to 2010, Clarke created the Electric Proms, which featured artists including Elton John, Robbie Williams, Shirley Bassey, Mark Ronson, Dizzee Rascal, Oasis, Sir Paul McCartney and more. She returned to radio in 2010 as network manager for Radio 2, 6 Music and later the Asian Network.
In the summer of 2019, she was appointed as the first ever BBC controller of pop music, later taking on her current director of music title.
Clarke’s remit includes BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, 6 Music, Asian Network, as well as BBC Music and music TV commissioning. Suffice to say, things have changed a great deal under her leadership, with new heads at each BBC pop station shaking things up.
Now, Music Week meets Clarke to unravel her incredible impact on the music business…
Congratulations! How does it feel to have won Outstanding Contribution at the Women In Music Awards?
“Well, it's recognition for me and my amazing team. In the work that I do, you never you never really seek the limelight. It's quite unusual for me to talk about myself. [But] I think it's amazing that Music Week does this. I hope you keep doing it, because it's really important that women in business own their success. That's not the same as being boastful, because that's quite an ugly thing, but it is quite natural for some people to confidently own their position if they're 50% or 60% there. Women overall are not comfortable with saying they're bossing it if they are 50, 60% there, we want to be 80, 90, 100% bossing it before we say we're successful. Actually, if you're doing 59%, you're better than everyone else anyway, so you don't need to be so hard on yourself. Most of the time, you will be good enough, and you are doing it.”
You were inducted into the Roll Of Honour in 2019 before this. What are your personal memories of the event?
“I think when Kanya [King] and Maggie [Crowe] got their awards, they both said the same thing, which is, there are so many people whose story you discover at this event, and you're like, ‘Oh, it's a woman doing that.’ I have people now who are like, ‘When you say you’re director of music at the BBC, what does that mean?’ And I say, ‘Well, I manage the strategy for the BBC.’ And they’re like, ‘But all of it or just this bit?’ I go, ‘No, all of it!’ It's gratifying for me to know that they can say, ‘Oh, there's someone that I can relate to,’ either because of the way I speak, where I went to school for my education, where I grew up or what I look like. I think the awards are an amazing place to celebrate good work from a range of places, not from where you would expect.”
I am known for absolute fairness and clarity
Lorna Clarke
How do you think the music industry perceives you and the work that you've done for them and their artists?
“I think people who I work with in the industry know that I bring an authenticity to what I do, that I am genuine about the support that BBC Music gives the whole industry. Whether it's new and emerging artists, which is a very important thing to me and is why we absolutely turbocharge what we do with BBC Introducing, or whether it's the biggest artists on the planet, Coldplay, Shirley Bassey, James Brown, McCartney, Stormzy… It's a wide range. I'm very happy supporting my team and talking about what we do, because it's not me on my own. I have 300 presenters, I've got six stations, I've got TV. There's no way I could do it on my own. But I think when they see me, they see many decades of experience. It's an earned position. I hope that when people see me on that stage, they see a little bit of themselves. That's the thing that's so cool about Women In Music, when I see all of those different amazing women stride onto that stage and own the recognition that they've got, because it IS a big deal, everyone gets a bit of it because it's like you've kind of contributed.”
As we’re reflecting on your career, which encounters with artists stick out in your memory the most?
“God there’s so many. Oasis did a show for us at the Electric Proms when relations probably weren't as great with the brothers, so we were lucky to have it, and they did this amazing show with a choir. We were so tense in the lead up, thinking, ‘Is it on? Is it off? We don't know. We really want this on TV and radio.’ The show and broadcast happened and it was great. Afterwards, Oasis had an afterparty. I think it was at Dingwalls, and a handful of us were invited. Now I don't really do parties, but I was so relieved. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I need a drink, I need to go.’ We went to this party, and my team know that I don't dance. But I was so relieved, I was properly throwing some moves on the dance floor, and then at one point, someone tapped my shoulder, I turned round, and it was Noel. He's like, ‘Just want to say hi and thanks for inviting us.’ And he got down on his knees, and he went, ‘This is great.’ And I thought, ‘I'm just too happy and delirious to take this in, this is just too much,’ so I kind of styled it out, like, ‘Wahey!’ and carried on dancing.”
How would you sum up the impact that you've made on the BBC since joining?
“It's taken me a while to properly own this, but if you're a senior leader you cannot underestimate the impact you have on the junior team by being authentic. I've had to learn that the way I carry myself, my body language, the things I lean into, people are watching, and they take heart from that, or they learn from it. This is why, for me, in-person working in an office is so important, because there are invisible cues that we give each other, which is not about ‘Here's a piece of paper, I want you to learn how to do it, off you go and do it.’ It's not that. They overhear the way you make a phone call, they hear a bit of kindness, or you make a cup of tea for someone. I am known for absolute fairness and clarity. It doesn't really matter where you are in the hierarchy of things. And to me, that’s what real inclusion means. It's, ‘How welcome are you making everyone feel?’ It's not about stats and data only. But I think more than ever, at the BBC it's saying, ‘Sell me what the creative idea is. It doesn't matter how wacky or how bonkers, I will listen because I just want the best ideas from anywhere.’”
At the Oasis afterparty following their Electric Proms, Noel Gallagher got down on his knees and he went,‘This is great!'
Lorna Clarke
What single thing are you most proud of in your tenure so far?
“Picking an amazing team, sometimes people underestimate that skill. It's super important. Get the right people around you and you will fly. I think the Electric Proms is a creative highlight, because it was very much down to me. It either worked or it didn't work. And the long-term ripple effect of that can still be felt now, and it was ages ago. I'm also very proud of the Rolling Stones commission and the Fight the Power commission with Chuck D for TV.”
The Women In Music Awards bring the focus back to equality and diversity in the industry. Have you had to overcome personal challenges in this area? If so, how did you do it?
“I've been in scenarios where I'm having a conversation on email, and they don't know who I am. And why would they? They don't know what I look like or anything. Then you have quite a big group meeting, and the most important person walks into the room. I greet them, and they ask me for a cup of tea. That doesn't happen now, but that has happened. I always take the position that I need to be gracious, and I start from a position of, ‘No, I'll ask my team to get you some tea. I'm Lorna.’ And then it's fine. It's not my job to embarrass people, but it is my job to inform them. I can do that graciously, but if I looked like your regular head of whatever, or manager or CEO, then that wouldn't really happen as often.”
Why does the music industry need a thriving BBC with a buzzing radio network and all the surrounding music coverage?
“Because we're doing things that nobody else is doing. It's a responsibility we take really seriously. The BBC’s aim is to have the maximum universality. That means the support we give to new music is unparalleled, that's fact measured independently. What we play on Radio 1 and Radio 2 in one week, is what our nearest rivals play in one year. Commercially that can't be done. We are not here to be market failures, because otherwise that's not good value for the licence fee. That doesn't mean we push everyone else out, but we have to provide value for as many people as possible. The greatest thing is to see something like the Mercury Prize reward an outfit like Ezra Collective. It's phenomenal. You see them performing around the world, and you're like, ‘That's British music being exported.’ You see an artist like Raye smashing it with her shows around the world, and it's so exciting. We at the BBC did not need data or stats to tell us that Raye is someone we need to keep an eye on and support. Clara Amfo played the record first. It was from a gut and experience. Play the record. Get a Live Lounge. She headlines a festival for the first time with the BBC, our One Big Weekend festival in Luton, and she would be like, ‘Can I do it?’ We're like, ‘Yeah, you can”. That’s our job!”
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