Cat's Mother of the Month - Negla Abdela

This month we had the pleasure of interviewing Negla Abdela, General Manager and former Head of Digital at Sony Music’s global entertainment label Ministry of Sound Records. Negla’s hard graft, talent and dedication to the job is evident, from climbing the career ladder and completely excelling in her field, to being inducted into the role of honour last year in recognition of her work for the music industry. We sought out to learn about her growth in the sector, what she enjoys most about the world of Digital Marketing, how she gains creative inspiration, and more.

Can you start by telling us a bit about your role - what do you get up to from day to day?

I’m the General Manager at Ministry of Sound Records and I look after the record label team overseeing marketing and digital strategy as well as working with our Curation team who manage our owned playlists, content and brand strategy. The days vary but in general I look at release planning, finance management and team development, the role requires great communication skills as I’m working with internal and external team members, artists, managers and senior stakeholders. A big part of the role is people management so making sure my team are happy, motivated and delivering on their responsibilities and setting in to help or advise them when needed.

You started at Ministry of Sound in 2015 as a Social Media Channel Manager and you're now the General Manager six years on, which is an incredible achievement. Was it always in the plan to work your way up in the company or is it a path that started shaping up as time went by?

I’ve always had ambitions to work my way up I just didn’t know that I’d become GM and how quickly that would happen. I usually look 12-18 months ahead and plan where I hope to be by then and what I’d need to do to achieve that progression so I’ve taken it one step at a time. I also came into Ministry at a time of change and growth which allowed me seek or create some opportunities and work hard to make them happen.

What's the best and most challenging thing about working in Digital Marketing? 

The most challenging thing is probably how quickly the digital landscape changes and evolves, you’re constantly learning new things and adopting new platforms and ways of working but it’s great because it constantly makes you think about things rather than just doing the same thing on campaigns over and over again. I prefer to be have challenges to figure out and new things to try rather than just going with the status quo.

What has been your proudest career moment so far and why?

It would be my promotion to General Manager because to me that was a culmination of my hard work over the last 10 years since I started my music industry career. It was a nice moment to share with my family and it gave us something to celebrate in lockdown. Another moment was being inducted into the Women In Music Roll of Honour alongside friends and incredible colleagues.

Can you think of a conversation or specific insight from someone that changed things for you career-wise, or offered a perspective that you hadn't considered before?

I was given a great piece of advice early on in my career, someone told me to figure out what my ‘thing’ was and be the best person at that so I become the go to person for it and that stuck with me. When I started at Ministry digital was a fairly new area and I was coming from a marketing background so it was all quite new to me. I learnt as much as I could, read all the trade articles, used all the new social media platforms and tried to stay across trends, digital was my ‘thing’ and I made sure if anyone had a question for me I always had the answer and if I didn’t know something I always knew exactly who to ask. Now in what ever role I’m doing I always strive to be the most knowledgeable person about my field in the room.

Where do you draw creative inspiration from?

I like to take inspiration from cultures attached to music, all genres of music have a culture around them and it’s in being connected with these cultures, the fashion, the people, the festivals etc that you can truly understand a genre or scene and then be able to market it well. We’re not selling products in our industry we’re promoting people and emotions and to connect with an audience on an emotional level and get them to connect back with you, you need to have a deeper understanding of who they are and what their world looks and feels like.

Is there anything you know now that you wish you had known when you first started?

I wish I knew that just because people are more senior than you it doesn’t mean they know knows it all. It would have stopped me having imposter syndrome as I was starting out and I would have spoken up more and shared my ideas with more confidence and passion. Its good to have conversations and challenge people’s ways of doing things if you think you have a way of doing it better.