Pollstar’s Women Of Live 2025 Hub

Pollstar is proud to present the sixth annual edition of Women Of Live, celebrating excellence in today’s live industry. Using a criteria that included Pollstar data to quantify touring success as well as such qualities as leadership, accomplishment, innovation, strategic planning, integrity and the ability to inspire and motivate others, Pollstar’s editorial team selected some 70 honorees for the WOL class of 2025. We easily could have quadrupled that number, which in the end made for hours of debate and Solomonic choices. It’s a great problem to have and would not have been possible when we started this list in 2020.

Although there is still a lot of progress that needs to be made toward gender parity in the live business – especially about who fills leadership roles – there is also plenty to celebrate when it comes to the brilliant women who are helping push the industry forward. This year’s honorees include an impressive and wide array of successful women working as managers, promoters, agents, bookers, venues executives, marketers, sustainability experts, political activists and more, as well as holding roles in social media, entertainment law, nonprofits and, incredibly deservedly, the WNBA.

The late writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said, “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” Check out the profiles below to read about women who are not only standing up for themselves but purposefully lifting those around them and helping to make the world a better place.

Pollstar will celebrate this year’s honorees at a special event in Los Angeles on April 14, the evening before Pollstar Live!

Women Of Live 2025 Cover Honoree
How Becky Colwell Keeps The Forum And Intuit Dome Running – And Makes It Look Easy

WOMEN OF LIVE HALL OF FAME 2025 INDUCTEES

Elizabeth Collins
Co-President, The Azoff Company

Susan Genco
Co-President, The Azoff Company

Pam Matthews
former Executive Director, IEBA

Melissa Ormond
COO, Festivals at AEG Presents and COO at Goldenvoice

Susan Rosenbluth
former SVP, AEG Presents/Goldenvoice

Marlene Tsuchii
Music Agent and Co-Head of International Touring for Creative Artists Agency, CAA

Click here for the Women Of Live Hall Of Fame 2024 inductees

WOMEN OF LIVE 2025 HONOREES

WOL INTERNATIONAL 2025 HONOREES

Lauretta Alabons
Co-Founder, LAMC Productions
Founder, LA Comedy Live

Nada Alhelabi
General Manager, MDLBEAST Foundation

Emily Eavis
Organizer, Glastonbury Festivals

Itzel González
Concerts & Entertainment Senior Promoter, OCESA

Rebecca Kane Burton
EVP Venue Management, OVG International

Trish McNamara
General Manager – Brisbane Entertainment Centre, ASM GLOBAL APAC

Rose Moon
Manager, September Management LTD.

Manaileng Maphike
Managing Director, Maphike Attorneys Inc.
Co-Founder, Chapter Chair, Women In Music South Africa

Karen Pedroso
Talent & Marketing Director, Move Concerts Brazil

Meagan Walker
Group Director, Arena Operations; ASM Global

WOMEN OF LIVE HALL OF FAME 2024 INDUCTEES

Barbara Skydel
former Partner, Premier Talent and VP, William Morris Agency
(Posthumously)
Barbara Skydel, a live industry trailblazer and a shoo-in for Pollstar’s inaugural Women of Live Hall of Fame, got started in the business in 1968 as an assistant to pioneering agent Frank Barsalona of Premier Talent, whose dealmaking shaped the industry. Skydel, who passed in 2010, burnished her legend climbing a ladder no woman had ever before scaled from assistant to agent to vice president to the first-ever female principal of a major talent firm.

Jenna Park Adler
Music Agent, CAA
Jenna Adler didn’t just have a brat summer but a brat year in 2024 with clients such as Green Day and Charli xcx among the top grossing touring acts on Pollstar’s Year End charts. More than three decades in the biz and CAA’s first homegrown music agent continues to show everyone how it’s done with Green Day headlining Coachella for the first time, Deftones (the first artists she signed) kicking off a sold-out arena tour and Doja Cat going global this year.

Amy Corbin
Promoter, C3 Presents / Live Nation
As one of the most influential and respected concert promoters in the country, Austin-based Amy Corbin remains committed to bringing top talent to stages of all kinds, from Austin City Limits Music Festival to Stubb’s Bar-B-Q and everything in between. She’s also committed to giving back, particularly through the company’s festivals, such as the Lollapalooza Arts Education Fund, which has provided $2.2 million to arts education programs in Chicago public schools, Austin Parks Foundation and multiple job fairs.

Ali Harnell
President and Chief Strategy Officer Live Nation Women, Live Nation
Ali Harnell is one of the most accomplished executives in the business, making a huge impact by expanding the Live Nation Women team and empowering those around her. That helped Live Nation earn recognition from Forbes as one of the world’s top companies for women last year, and she’s not done yet as she spearheads an initiative called Mom Bus, which aims to drive structural changes that allow women in the industry to balance their careers with motherhood.

Barbara Hubbard
Executive Director, American Collegiate Talent Showcase (ACTS)
After spending nearly three decades as the special events director at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, Barbara “Mother” Hubbard retired from the role in 1996 but has continued serving as the executive director of American Collegiate Talent Showcase. Via ACTS, she’s helped provide countless students with hands-on experience, job opportunities, mentorships and scholarships. She’s hoping to host a show for her 98th birthday to raise $1 million in scholarships for NMSU, among other universities.

Carole Kinzel
Music Agent, CAA
Carole Kinzel considers CAA’s actions in the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires to be among her greatest achievements of the year. The CAA Foundation, Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) and the Los Angeles Unified School District came together to start the SoCal Fire Fund to help provide long-term support for the community efforts most impacted by the wildfires. Kinzel notes she has yet to meet someone who was not impacted by the fires in some way.

Sam Kirby Yoh
Partner and Global Co-Head of Music, UTA
Sam Kirby Yoh has spent 21 years as a music agent, representing talent including LCD Soundsystem, FKA Twigs, Rosalía, and St. Vincent. As UTA’s co-head of the global music team, Kirby Yoh continues to be a leading force in both the agency world and the music industry. Kirby Yoh is a Founder and Board Member of She Is The Music — a nonprofit focused on increasing the number of women working in the global music industry. Kirby Yoh’s client St. Vincent had a prolific year, winning three Grammy Awards for her critically acclaimed album All Born Screaming and performing alongside Nirvana at FireAid in Los Angeles in January.

Cara Lewis
CEO, Founder, Cara Lewis Group
Cara Lewis is a pioneering agent in the hip-hop world representing some of the genre’s biggest artists, so much so that she was name-checked by her clients Eric B. and Rakim in their hit song “Paid in Full.” She continues to make waves as head of her own agency, working on Travis Scott’s massively successful “Circus Maximus” global tour, and she’s riding that momentum into 2025 with dates on the horizon from standout clients such as Eminem, Ice Spice, Russ, Don Toliver, Khalid and Erykah Badu. Plus, look out for more dates from Travis Scott.

Judi Marmel
Founding Partner, Levity Live
Judi Marmel is a 30 year industry veteran and one of the only women to have founded a major comedy entertainment firm. Her impressive roster includes Bert Kreischer, Taylor Tomlinson, Leanne Morgan and Fortune Feimster, among others. Marmel serves as an executive producer alongside her clients on multiple TV and film projects. As Pollstar was going to press Kreischer had just announced dates for the “Permission To Party” tour. Meanwhile, Feimster is on the road and Morgan is gearing up for the “Just Getting Started Tour.” When she’s not busy hosting the CBS late-night show “After Midnight,” Tomlinson is on stages across the globe.

Marla Ostroff
Managing Director, North America, Ticketmaster
Marla Ostroff has been a reliable hand on the ticketing tiller in the choppy waters of regulation, mergers, legislative attention, grimace- and heartburn-inducing onsales and unwanted (and sometimes unwarranted) negative attention. She was there when computerized ticketing changed the game, but she always remembered it’s the relationships and trust that make the machine go. She’s still eyeing innovations: haptic experiences for vision-impaired fans, biometric improvements for streamlined entry and up-to-the-second updates for ticketholders.

Debra Rathwell
Executive Vice President of Global Touring & Talent, AEG Presents  
When Debra Rathwell left her tiny hometown in a remote region of Quebec to go to college in Ottawa, she could have never foreseen what life held in store. Over 40-plus years, she’s amassed relationships and stories for a thousand lifetimes. In 2019, she became EVP of AEG’s new Global Touring and Talent department and led a division that brought the world huge tours from Elton John, Def Leppard, Justin Bieber and more.

Marsha Vlasic
Vice-Chair of the Music Division, IAG
Marsha Vlasic came up in a version of the music industry different for many women today. She had no mentors, telling Pollstar, “It was sink or swim for me.” Vlasic rose through the ranks, starting off as an assistant back in the 1970s and working her way up to become the Vice Chair of the Music Division at IAG. She continues to book tours for Neil Young, Cage The Elephant, PJ Harvey, The Strokes and more.