The Power 50: Sarah Hamilton

Sarah Hamilton got her start in music as a rehearsal manager with the National Institute of Youth Performing Arts, then moving on to work in artists relations at Musicadium. Hamilton held roles at various music businesses until settling at Ditto Music in 2013. In 2015, Hamilton co-founded One Of One, an organisation that celebrates women and people in the Australian music industry.

Among Ditto Music’s most significant achievements for the year was the announcement of their partnership with Alt. Music group, which sees them working with artists including Kaiit, Françoistunes, Yaw Faso, Zac Slater and Ceeko. "Ditto Music has been assisting Alt Music Group and their artists with services for a few years now, but we wanted to formalise this with more of a long-term partnership with them as a label to help accelerate the great work they are already doing," said Hamilton at the time.

It certainly was a success, with Kaiit picking up the ARIA Award for Best Soul/R&B Release for Miss Shiney. Throughout the year, Ditto announced their new Bluebox service (a blockchain offering for independent artists) and expanded their team. Hamilton and the One Of One team saw their biggest year to date, expanding their International Women’s Day breakfast events to Sydney, as well as continuing in Melbourne, and announcing the One Of One and White Sky Governance Award which saw two winners attend a board governance training program.

"At both Ditto Music and One Of One, the biggest achievements of 2019 were adding excellent people to the teams. Ditto went from two staff in Australia to five, and having Frank Varrasso join the team as Radio Manager and Jade Gould as Publicity Manager has been hugely exciting, because what we can offer to artists has changed immensely. At One Of One, we partnered with Jane Slingo, Em Collins, Bec Young and Meg Williams in Sydney as they hosted a simultaneous International Women’s Day event in 2019 alongside the annual Melbourne event, and Anne Wiberg in Adelaide joined the team in 2019 so she could host an event there in 2020. Growth for me is about adding excellent people to teams, and their knowledge, experience and creativity to the melting pot."