Shain Shapiro

Shain Shapiro is the founder and MD of Sound Diplomacy. Sound Diplomacy is the leading music market development agency, providing music strategy and research to cities and governments, organising music conferences and working with talent development. In its first two years, Sound Diplomacy has expanded to three offices and a representative in India, working with over 30 clients in 20 countries. In this role Shain has been instrumental in the coordination and development of festivals in 10 countries, has co-authored extensive reports to Arts Council England, Sound and Music, Music Nova Scotia, authored a course for Berklee College of Music and has given lectures in workshops across North and South America, Europe and Africa.

He is also the co-founder of Music Cities Convention, the first music conference dedicated to music industry development and city issues. He worked on the development of the Momentum Music Fund in England and has consulted with Arts Council Wales, Adam Mickiewicz Institute Poland, Israel Music Export and over a dozen other governments and institutions.  He has delivered a TEDx talk on the value of music to cities and spoken on the topic at the European Parliament.

He holds a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London and was the in the top 10 Creative Entrepreneurs in Britain in the British Council’s h100 list. He is originally from Toronto, Canada and lives in East London and is fanatic about cities, urban policy, use of space, urban living and food.