With this series, we bring together the experiences and perspectives of women and non-binary people in the music business. In 2025, we take a look behind the scenes and focus on the people beside the musicians. Regardless of quotas, so-called categories or classifications, it takes 100% of us to stand up for feminism to have the greatest impact.
How and where did you gain experience in the music industry?
Kata Fohl: I was born and raised in Hungary, studied “International Business & Management” in Budapest and only ended up in Vienna in 2010 after a short detour via Holland. My plan was to finish my thesis after a short compulsory internship and return to Budapest. My thesis has actually been sitting in a drawer for 15 years now, but (luckily!) my return to my old home country never materialized.
After my internship at monkey.music, Walter Gröbchen immediately took me on as a permanent employee and I was responsible for almost everything as label manager for the following five years – as is usual with smaller labels. After the initial short training period, the first months and years were characterized by “learning by doing”, and I worked in all areas from classic label management to promo and event management to accounting. I learned an incredible amount and gained a lot of experience in a very short time and gained an overview of the entire music industry – all of this laid the foundation for my independence and my current work in this industry.
“I’m celebrating my 10th anniversary with Wanda this year”
I joined Wanda Management in the fall of 2015, a few months later I became self-employed as an artist and project manager, and in the fall of 2016 Wanda asked me if I would like to take over the management completely. Looking back, that was the second key moment in my career and the beginning of the next extremely instructive phase, albeit with a much higher level of commitment.
So this year I’m celebrating my 10th anniversary with Wanda. The band is my only major project in the music sector and already fills my work-capacity to a very large extent. At the same time, I’ve been teaching music management at the SET – School for Entertainment and Technology and the FH Kufstein over the past few years, and I’ve led international tours of the freestyle motocross show “Masters of Dirt” and the Shaolin Monks from China.
What kind of support have you received in the course of your career? Where would you have liked (more) support?
Kata Fohl: I always kept my eyes open for funding and further training opportunities. My first few months in Vienna at monkey.music were only possible thanks to an Erasmus (study abroad) funding program for internships abroad, because in autumn 2010 Hungary was still subject to a quota regulation in the EU and I was not allowed to accept employment in Austria. During the coronavirus period, I also attended one or two WIFI (further education) courses and received funding from the WAFF. I have a positive impression of the opportunities for further training and job promotion in our industry in Austria – but I’m speaking as a person behind the scenes. If you talk to artists who are currently taking off on stage and trying to make a living from their music, a different picture emerges.
In my case, the trust that was placed in me at the beginning – without the appropriate training or cultural background – was much more important than the classic support, especially from Walter Gröbchen and Eileen Zirzow, my predecessor at monkey.music, and subsequently from the band members of Wanda. Nobody could have imagined at the beginning that our collaboration would be so successful in both cases, and I am grateful for the doors that were opened to me back then. Once I had one foot in, everything else depended on my qualities, which I had to prove very often.
What were your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
Kata Fohl: My biggest challenges were the language – I came to Austria in 2010 with a good knowledge of German, but I was in no way prepared for the Viennese language – and the lack of experience in the industry, as well as the cultural background from another country. I had little contact with music from Austria in the first 20 years of my life. Nothing helped except ‘close your eyes (or open your ears) and get on with it’. From my first day in Vienna, I moved around in almost exclusively in German-speaking circles, started reading a lot about the industry and Austrian music, and attended information events and, of course, many concerts.
Looking back, I don’t have the impression that anyone thought less of me or treated me less favorably because of my gender. If there was any skepticism from new business partners, it was perhaps more for the reasons mentioned above – plus the fact that I already had a lot of responsibility at the age of 21 and represented one of the most successful bands in Austria at 26. You had to prove yourself to the older generation first.
“You had to prove yourself to the older generation first.”
Did you have role models around you that you could look up to? What role models do women in the music industry currently have?
Kata Fohl: I think in the beginning I simply didn’t have time to look for role models or orient myself towards other people, and I’m also more of a person who marches forward with her head through the wall. In the beginning, I always said “yes” when I was offered a new project or a new assignment and never asked myself, or only much later, “can/can I even do that?” This is supposedly a typically male characteristic, and women are much more concerned about why they are not 100% suitable for something and are a little more cautious.
I don’t think we necessarily need to look up to someone in the sense of a classic role model. I think mutual appreciation and recognition on an equal footing in daily business is at least as important, and I’m very aware of how much women in this industry achieve every day and how important their work is. I’m looking forward to the day when it will be different, but at the moment I still feel that it’s almost exclusively men at the top of labels/festivals/booking agencies etc., who are now more concerned with controlling and contracts than with their artists or projects on a day-to-day basis. But all other levels in these companies are largely made up of women who ensure that the releases/projects/events are actually realized and who do their work extremely professionally and yet with a great deal of sensitivity – which is often not reflected in their salaries.
So my shout-out goes out to all women in this industry, regardless of standing or job title – let’s look at each other as role models, recognize how far we’ve come and continue to stand up for each other.
How can women and non-binary people support each other and promote solidarity in their professional environment? What can you pass on to the next generation?
Kata Fohl: I would say: keep it up! Again, I’m speaking from the perspective of the managers/promoters/bookers etc. behind the stage, not the female artists who continue to struggle with visibility, festival bookings, funding budgets etc. As far as “our” part of the industry is concerned, I see positive developments. I think that a generation with a high proportion of women and non- binary people is growing up right now that supports each other, is in active exchange, thinks more with and less against each other, puts a lot of heart and self-sacrifice into it and doesn’t give up, even if it’s currently more difficult in this industry than it was a few years or decades ago. Now it depends on the previous generations when and how the baton will be passed and whether the potential of all these young people will be sufficiently recognized and promoted before, for example, the major labels, which are of course also very relevant in terms of jobs, withdraw completely from Austria or important festivals and clubs close down.
What questions are you asked that a man would never be asked?
Kata Fohl: Apart from the fact that I find the question problematic even without the music industry context: “Do you ever want to have children? And how is that going to work out with your job?”
Kata Fohl is Wanda’s manager and works as a freelance artist and project manager.
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Translated from the German original by Arianna Alfreds.