Biography
During her senior year of undergrad, Laila Darville decided to pivot her career. While she was majoring in vocal performance and pedagogy with a minor in business management and entrepreneurship, she realized she ultimately didn’t want to pursue classical performance. “I had business minors and had really enjoyed getting to understand some of the strategies and frameworks that the business world uses,” she says. “I realized that I could leverage both my love for music and my leadership skills to become an industry professional on the business side of the music industry.”
Her dream is to work as an artist relations manager, a liaison between artists, managers, their teams and the record label or publishing company. “With my business minors, I had a lot of familiarity with some more qualitative strategies and frameworks,” Laila says. “However, I was still missing some fundamental quantitative business acumen, so I was excited to come to the Master in Management program to get more concrete fundamental industry necessities such as finance, accounting, as well as organizational strategy.”
Once Laila entered the Master in Management program, she immediately felt welcomed and connected to her cohort and the faculty. “The faculty here are really invested in the students,” she says. “They are deeply invested in my success…They tend to go above and beyond just the classroom, but they also create activities for us to network and engage outside of the classroom.”
Laila’s experience has also helped her grow professionally, particularly as a leader. While she enjoys leading, she set a goal to take a step back and empower others. “I've learned how to not limit myself or put myself in a box by not taking charge, but also learning how to empower other people to stand up, to feel like they can speak up and their voice would be valued,” she says. “I learned to trust my teammates. That was a challenge for me for a very long time. It's still a challenge, but having such an incredibly effective team really taught me to depend upon my teammates.”