Welcome Salomé Besse: New Executive Manager at Keychange!

We are delighted to announce that Salomé Besse has taken over the role of Managing Director at Keychange asbl with immediate effect!

Salomé has worked between France and Canada, committed to equity, representation and organisational sustainability in the music sector. She holds a M.A. in Management of Cultural Organisations from Université Paris-Dauphine, with a foundation in philosophy from Université de Reims. She spent nearly 3 years as Programming Manager at Centre Français Hamilton (Ontario, Canada), developing cultural and community programmes for Franco-Ontarian communities and scaling the FrancoFEST festival, and for nearly 7 years served as European Projects Manager at Europavox (France), where she led large-scale Creative Europe cooperation projects, and projects such Music Europe Day, Ukrainian MusicLab and Europavox Campus. Over time, she developed an expertise in international cooperation, governance and strategic fundraising, and has worked with different dimensions of diversity — linguistic, geographic, and now gender – which she sees as deeply interdependent, at the heart of intersectional work.

Trained as a classical pianist for ten years and a curious listener across genres – from classical to rap, rock to post-pop – she is also co-president of Music Declares Emergency France and an advocate for intersectional equity, ecological responsibility and care-based leadership in the music industry.

"In a moment when fundamental rights are increasingly questioned, working for diversity, representation and plurality of perspectives has never felt more urgent. Keychange is an invitation to come together — to turn shared values into concrete action, amplifying artists, innovators and professionals of underrepresented genders across the music industry. I am honoured to step into this role alongside an exceptionally skilled team and a wider community of signatories, partners, mentors and artists across Europe, Canada and beyond, whose commitment fuels intersectional change across the sector. Diversity isn't a side note — it shapes fairer economies, stronger communities, more liveable ecosystems, and a music industry that truly counts everyone in." – Salomé Besse

Welcome to the team!