“We must create paths and opportunities” –

Jeremiah Gogo is Head of Data, A&R Analytics and Business Development at Virgin Music UK. The University of Essex recently named him Alumnus of the Year, in recognition of his founding of the Open Desk Programme, among other things. What is it? Music Ally’s Patrick Ross caught up with him to find out.

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Patrick Ross: Before we dive into the Open Desk Programme, would you like to tell Music Ally readers a little about yourself?

Jeremiah Gogo: I’m from a part of south London and have always been interested in music: I played the trumpet and piano as a child. But I was also pretty good at maths and decided to study it. The numbers route is how I got into the music industry.

My first job in the music industry was with Universal Music Group as a commercial analytics intern. I worked my way through a few commercial analytics roles and then moved to Warner Music Group in the UK to work in commercial analytics.

Then, parallel to the rise of data-driven A&R and TikTok systems in our industry, a field we now call A&R analytics emerged, so I joined Atlantic to take on the role of Head of Data and A&R Analytics and introduce new methods for sourcing talent.

And now in my latest role at Virgin Music Group, where I work as Head of Data for Business Development and A&R Analytics, it encompasses all the things I’ve done in my career!

Patrick Ross: So what is the Open Desk program and what motivated you to create it?

Jeremiah Gogo: It is a program designed to help young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds enter the music industry and gain professional experience.

The reason I set it up was because when I was young I was supported by a charity called the Social Mobility Foundation. They helped me get my first work experience the summer before university. This charity focused on children from schools where a large proportion of the students came from poorer neighborhoods.

It was absolutely priceless. I think we underestimate the value of these work experiences because – and I always use this as an example when I speak – things like going for a coffee with someone, shaking someone’s hand, introducing yourself properly… These are maybe soft skills that you may or may not learn at home, maybe in school, maybe not, but in the workplace they are something that is very important to sustain a career and to progress in your career.

I remember a young person coming in and saying, “Hey, I don’t drink coffee. What should I do?” And actually, in many cultures in West Africa, it’s more of a tea-drinking society! And it’s very strange to have to explain, “Hey, you don’t need to drink coffee. Just drink a glass of water, grab your notepads and go to a meeting.”

It’s nuances like this that really struck a chord with me. When I started at Universal, I saw that the need for social mobility was just as great as in some other industries. We’re a great industry and I love it here, but I assumed that maybe we were more progressive than other industries. But in fact, the need for social mobility was still there.

Patrick Ross: What impacts and results have you seen through the program?

Jeremiah Gogo: When I joined Warner, I joined Rosie Stone in the people team and the CEO Tony Harlow was very supportive. He enabled budgets to be released from the DE&I (diversity, equity and inclusion) teams to work on the program and in the first year, nine people came through who got to learn the business. From finance to the labels and supply chain to working with the studio in the building.

The first result for me is that I see people in the building. These are young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds who benefit greatly from the experience of being in this building. But what we saw specifically was the diversity of thought and opinions.

I go into meetings and so many great ideas come up, but just because of our life experiences, we don’t necessarily see those ideas as clearly as they do. And we market music to everyone, so we need the views and opinions of everyone in the room to be successful marketers.

Of these nine people, seven were offered permanent employment after the internship and two found other employment. So the retention rate after the internship was 100%. In my opinion, this speaks volumes about the talent we can find with a program like this.

Patrick Ross: How can this program now develop further? How can it be expanded and what needs to be done to achieve this?

Jeremiah Gogo: As part of the programme, we set up some stages. We organised an induction to ensure that the young people had a seamless transition into working in the music industry. They were able to tour the building.

We also set up a buddy system, which meant they had another young professional that they could contact on a more confidential basis than their manager, so that they could be a little more open about their experiences with that other young person so that they could help them.

We also made sure that we offered a CV clinic towards the end of the program to ensure that even if the role wasn’t offered, the applicants could spread their wings and hit the ground running with a strong CV. And at the end of the program, they presented their experience to the CEO. I think these steps ensure that the young person has had a well-rounded experience.

I hope we can just increase the number of participants in the program. I hope to see collaboration between the three big companies to make sure we can transfer the learnings so we can use the economies of scale to learn how it works at one company and make sure it’s implemented at another company.

But I think the success of the program speaks for itself because the young people who came out of it all currently have successful jobs and the vast majority of them are still working in the music industry.

A diverse board always produces better results, and there is plenty of data to prove this.

Patrick Ross: What’s the bigger picture here? Where do you see progress across the industry in areas related to what you’ve accomplished with the program?

Jeremiah Gogo: One area that needs more work is the allocation of roles. When I look at our industry, particularly with all the restructuring that has taken place in the last year or two, many of the roles where we see a great diversity of thought and people seem to be very menial roles.

I think we need to get better as an industry at getting young people from diverse backgrounds into senior roles. Diversity of thought isn’t just needed at the junior marketing level: it’s needed at the board level too. A diverse board is always more powerful, and there’s plenty of data to prove this.

So diversity in leadership is the area we need to work on the most as an industry. And to achieve that, we need to create pathways. When we hire diversely at lower levels, we need to create pathways, opportunities and internal progression systems to make sure those young people can progress.

Patrick Ross: Are there any other initiatives or organizations that are doing good work and that you would like to highlight?

Jeremiah Gogo: Some of the charities I have worked with externally are really good, I have to give a special shout out to Natalie (Wade) from Small Green Shoots, she set up the charity and has done a brilliant job of developing young people from outside the industry to prepare them for a career in the industry.

I feel like we’re a little limited in the industry in terms of the number of programs we can do, but I know from the conversations I’ve had over the course of my career at both Warner and Universal that there’s a focus on that from leadership. So there’s a focus on improving that.

It will only be better for all of our labels if we can reach young people in areas where we may not have a presence from a recruitment perspective. If our current recruitment tactics are through university recruitment fairs or standard processes, we will not have a presence in some parts of the UK and the world and we will not have the most diverse opportunity to recruit new people.

Patrick Ross: Finally, congratulations on being named Alumnus of the Year by the University of Essex! How do you feel about this award and what does it mean to you?

Jeremiah Gogo: I spent so much time at university and got involved in so many things and I look back on that time as a really crucial period of my formative years, shaping me into the person I am in the office, in the music industry and back out in the world.

It’s a very progressive university and it helped me develop my critical thinking skills so that I could think about the world and the people of the world in a way that ultimately led me to start the Open Desk program. Simply by having the mindset of looking at equality and progress and trying to make the world a better place.

I would love to see this used as an opportunity for all industries and all graduates of the class of 2024 to implement these things in their respective industries and fields. Hopefully all industries can benefit from the fact that there are some really talented graduates who have a positive world view and are positive towards people too!