Following the positive response to our first Women In Sound article, we’ve decided to release a second list of outstanding female thought-leaders in the industry. These came from reader suggestions so we haven’t limited the number to six. Here is Part Two, enjoy!
- Dr. Rupal Patel
Dr. Rupal Patel is an internationally renowned speech scientist and an expert on voice AI. She is the Founder and CEO of the voice AI company, VocaliD, and has decades of clinical and academic experience in sound. Rupal was named a Voice Visionary in 2019 by Voicebot and listed among the 50 most creative in business by FastCompany.
- Leslie Ann Jones
Leslie was the first female National Officer of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Having grown up in Los Angeles with parents in the music scene, Leslie Ann Jones started making music at an early age and hasn’t stopped since. She is a multiple-Grammy award winning recording engineer, working as Director of Music Recording and Scoring at Skywalker Sound.
- Jennifer Heape
Jen Heape is the Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder at Vixen Labs – Europe’s leading full service voice agency. She is a pioneer in the field of voice strategy and voice user experience (VUX). With her expertise in linguistics and over a decade of experience leading creative teams, Jen heads the voice product output of Vixen Labs, showing top brands where voice technology fits in their customer experiences.
- Suze Cooper
Formerly a broadcast journalist for 20 years, today Suze Cooper is the Voice and Audio Creative at Vixen Labs. Her job ranges from auditing content with her professional audio ear, to developing creative solutions for voice experiences like Alexa Skills, Google Actions and more. Combining her love of sound and content creation, Suze is a know-how when it comes to using audio to tell a story.
- Audrey Arbeeny
With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Audrey Arbeeny is recognized as a pioneer in sonic branding. She is the owner and Emmy Award-Winning Executive Producer for the sonic branding boutique Audiobrain. At Audiobrain, Audrey combines her love of music and science with her business intel, and oversees all projects from start to finish.
- Oita Coleman
Oita Coleman is the Senior Adviser at Open Voice Network – a nonprofit industry association seeking to make voice technology worthy of user trust. With over 30 years in the software industry, Oita is passionate about creating innovative solutions for complex challenges. Formerly, Oita was the Founder and CEO of Servant Voice Technologies.
- Keri Roberts
Known as a Top Voice Influencer, Keri Roberts is a Brand Evangelist for ReadSpeaker – a global software company specializing in voice technology. In her role, Keri oversees the planning and implementation of branding strategies and develops strategic content for conversational AI themes. Always highlighting the power of voice, Keri is a content creator, storyteller, event planner, podcast producer and more.
- Kath Pollard
Based in London, Kath Pollard is an award-winning re-recording mixer specializing in features, drama and documentary mixing. Her work has appeared in a number of TV shows and films such as Golden Globe-nominated film ‘The Two Popes.’ Kath is known for her skills in dialogue-mixing, particularly with impaired recordings and mixing in languages other than English.
- Emma Butt
Emma Butt is a dubbing mixer, ADR recordist and sound editor. Based in London, Emma works on a variety of projects. Recently, she was the ADR Recordist for Netflix’s popular show ‘Sex Education’ and prior to that she did ADR work on Game of Thrones. Emma is tirelessly advocating for better representation and diversity within TV and film sound departments.
- Dr. Merritt Moore
As a professional ballerina with a PhD in physics from Oxford and recently listed on Forbes 30 Under 30, Dr. Merritt Moore is a unique addition to this list. Merritt has a passion for fusing the arts and sciences and is currently working to create a duet between a human dancer and an industrial robotic arm. As she continues to explore the future of A.I. and machine learning, perhaps her work will be the missing link between sound design and robotics.
Photo by Knowledge Anywhere