Who Gets to Claim the Space?

YolanDa Brown has always moved between worlds. A double MOBO Award-winning saxophonist, she is equally at home on stage, on air, and in boardrooms. In spring 2024, she opened Soul Mama, a grassroots music venue and restaurant, breaking the global record for the largest-ever crowdfunding raised by a restaurant and earning a Guinness World Record in the process. Alongside her creative career, Brown has spent years shaping the UK’s arts landscape: she was Chair of Youth Music for six years, sits on the Arts Council National Council, is a trustee of the PRS Foundation, a King’s Trust Ambassador, and serves on the arts and media honours committee. She has even been invited by the Department of Education to advise on the National Plan for Music Education.

Yet despite these achievements, Brown is candid about the pressures women face in claiming authority. “I do not allow other people’s measurements of success, or their unconscious bias, to determine who I am or what I do. Of course there have been moments where I have been aware of the need to prove myself more, simply because I am a woman, but I made a decision a long time ago not to build my life or career around other people’s limitations. I stay focused on excellence, purpose and impact. For me, credibility comes from doing the work, doing it well and doing it consistently and I want my 2 daughters Jemima 12 and Adelphi 6 to also live their lives with this mindset.”

For Brown, credibility is something to take rather than wait for. “I have also learned that credibility is not something you wait to be given. You claim it by showing up fully in every space you occupy. Whether I am on stage, in a boardroom, on air, or building a business, I bring the same level of care, preparation and conviction. Over time, that creates its own authority. I think as women we can sometimes be encouraged to shrink, to soften our ambition, or to explain ourselves more than necessary, but I believe in letting the work speak while also being unafraid to own the space I have earned.”

Launching Soul Mama, she says, shifted her understanding of risk. “Soul Mama has completely taken my relationship with risk to a new level. Now I see it as something to design intelligently and embrace… not run away from. I hate the term measured risk, if it was measured then surely it would not be risk. One of the biggest lessons is that risk is not just financial, it is emotional, reputational and personal. Opening a venue while balancing family life and an already full career required a different level of resilience. As women we are often conditioned to wait until things feel ready or perfect. But entrepreneurship does not work like that. With Soul Mama we have had to move decisively, sometimes opening doors before everything is fully figured out and trusting that we can build while we grow. I have learned that courage and clarity are more important than certainty.”

She stresses the importance of owning both creative and commercial leadership. “It starts with ownership, ownership of your narrative, your IP and your decisions. Too often women in business or creative industries are positioned as the face or the talent while others sit behind the scenes making the business decisions. I made a very conscious decision to understand the commercial side of everything I do from contracts to revenue streams to long term strategy. Positioning yourself as a business leader also means speaking that language confidently, like my favourite word… drum roll EBIDTA, haha! Do not be afraid to ask about numbers, margins, partnerships, equity. And importantly build a team that respects you as both a creative and a decision maker. The two are not mutually exclusive, in fact they are most powerful when they sit together.”

Motherhood, she says, has reshaped how she leads. “Support systems have been everything. I often say that no woman does this alone and we should not be expected to. For me that includes family support, from my husband to my daughters, trusted childcare (my retired parents who are both awesome) and a strong team around me professionally. It also includes having people who genuinely believe in the vision and are willing to step in when needed. But what is still missing is structural support. We need more flexibility built into how businesses and industries operate, especially for women who are leading, not just participating. There is also still a cultural expectation that women should hold it all together seamlessly. The reality is balance is dynamic and we need to normalise that.”

If one structural change could transform opportunities for women, Brown says it is access to capital. “Access to capital, full stop. REAL capital! Not a token gesture, real backing for start up and growth, early on, that is when most businesses need it. Not after the success story movie has been written and support is backed by glossy data. Women, particularly women of colour, are still significantly underfunded when it comes to investment. And when you are building something multi dimensional like a venue, a brand and a creative platform, traditional funding models do not always understand that vision. We need more investors who recognise the value of cultural businesses and creative ecosystems, not just traditional start-ups. If we can unlock capital for women building at scale you will see not just individual success stories but entire communities and industries transformed. We currently employ 45 people and in the next couple of months that will increase to 100 with the launch of our second site. We are very proud of that, feel a great deal of responsibility and want to do more… loads more.”

For Brown, success is not only about personal achievement but creating a platform for others. Across music, media, and business, she exemplifies how ambition, ownership, and preparation can define a career on one’s own terms, while providing a model for women pursuing multi-hyphenate lives in the UK.