Imogen Heap
Recording Artist & Technologist - Mycelia Ltd

- How would you describe your career?
When people ask me what I do, I haven’t yet figured out how to properly answer that question! I usually just say that I make music and tech. Most of my time is made up of hours and hours of talking and sharing a vision and along the way, finding the people who have the business or tech know-how to pull all that together.
- How did you get to where you are now?
When I was growing up, I just wanted to make music. I hadn’t figured out how I could do it for a career, or what jobs were even out there. I just wanted to keep going in that direction. If I thought for a moment that I wanted to be a famous pop star with all the trappings then that might have gone terribly wrong and I would have never got here. Very few people make it when coming at it from that premise. Do what you love and that passion will make you a cut above anyone else.
- What motivates you on a daily basis – what gets you up in the morning?
I feel a real sense of change in the music industry. Something is closing in on the horizon, which is a sense of community, sharing and openness. Data is going to put music makers at the core and they’ll be able to drive their careers by being data empowered.
- What’s the biggest challenge that you face right now?
We love, and we listen to, and we care about music so much, yet the industry around music isn’t particularly transparent or fair. It’s a place where innovation is really needed. Thanks to a lot of recent developments such as blockchain, we have real potential to reimagine our future.