COMPASS MUSIC

My name is Géraldine Zanaska, and I am the founder and president of Compass Music, a consulting company I created in July 2019. We offer different services to music project owners (labels, publishers, show producers, artist managers, festivals, cultural institutions and organizations) to support them in their international development. We are also launching in 2021 Lighthouse, a new innovative B2B digital platform and marketplace.

I am a Parisian by birth but a Londoner by adoption. After my studies, I had several professional experiences always in London, for independent concert producers (Bird On The Wire), a label (Bella Union), a concert hall (Royal Albert Hall), and for the French Music Export Office.

I always had in mind to become independent, but I was waiting for the right idea, the right moment. I realized that my existing ideas were already good, and that the "right" moment didn't exist, so at 30, I thought about it a little - but not too much, and I took the plunge.

I discovered MILA thanks to the manager Stéphane Viard, who is installed in a store next to the MILA Pole, with whom I had a meeting. I was looking for a flexible coworking space because I was going back and forth between London and Paris a lot, and he told me about MILAB. That's how I got into the MILA ecosystem! Since then, I joined the board of directors (in June 2020) because I fully support the association's missions and I want to encourage the development of entrepreneurship in music, especially among women who are in the minority (less than 14% of the structures in the sector are founded by women). I also wish to help MILA to radiate internationally. I also had an office in the cluster, which allowed me to welcome my first intern and many collaborators in good conditions to develop new projects, including Lighthouse, for my company.