2026 Women Of Live: Hilary Gleason

Hilary Gleason
Backline Care, Inc. | Co-Founder / Executive Director

WHO SHE’D LIKE TO SEE ON THE WOMEN OF LIVE LIST: “LP Giobbi, touring artist and co-founder of Femme House.  We met in 2021 and there were so many parallels in our story it was easy to fall into a friendship. Both raised by Deadheads and now working in the small intersection of music industry and nonprofit, we saw in each other a shared ambition—to change the industry for good, but more importantly to build meaningful community, and a well rounded life.”

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“I’ve maybe never been more proud of anything than I am about our recent launch of B-LINE, a 24/7 mental health and crisis support line created exclusively for the music industry. We rallied music industry majors like Spotify, Live Nation, Noah Kahan and more to bring this initiative to life and as of Jan. 27, the lines are open. In an industry as round-the-clock as ours is, support needs to be available anytime. 2025 was a landmark year for Backline … Iconic moments like Chappell Roan’s call on the industry to do better at the 2025 Grammys, and winning the Pollstar Award for Touring Services Company of the Year, helped lay the groundwork for us to do more with more industry-wide support.”

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN
“I never set out to work in music, but I’m so glad I let myself answer the call. Starting my career in global health, I always seemed to just say yes to the opportunities where I could do the most good. Blame that on both of my parents being nurses, I guess. It wasn’t until I landed a job on Global Citizen’s advocacy team that I found myself on the other side of the show. There were some crazy moments that came with that, like being tasked with running a 300-plus celebrity-filled green room in Central Park, when the Secret Service gave me an ear piece so we could move dignitaries around the park … and taking (Coldplay’s) Chris Martin to India for the first time. Now almost a decade later, I’m grateful for those opportunities as they prepared me for the realities of working in music: anything can happen anytime, so you need to stay ready.”

HER GUIDING PHILOSOPHY
“‘Either you do it like it’s a big weight on you, or you do it as part of the dance’ — Ram Dass. I spent years with the gravity of my privilege feeling like a big weight on me, and the obligation I felt to make sure that was leveraged towards supporting others often came at the expense of my own well-being. … My most important work now is to take care of myself so I can continue to be of service to others.”