‘We Work with Passion and Love What We Do’: Camille Soto, Founder of GLAD Empire

It is hard for any artist to make it big without the right support. The path to success is even harder for the independent artists who have the talent but do not have the means to make it big. This is where GLAD Empire helps out. The professional team at GLAD provides the artists with the necessary tools they need to publish, distribute and promote their music, with the same capacity and competence that any major label provides its signed artists. But that’s not all that GLAD does. The company goes one step further. The firm also educates artists, composers, and producers, who do not know how to make money from music the right way, quintessentially helping them make better business decisions and know their rights within the music business.

Founded in 2006, GLAD Empire is a worldwide digital distribution, audio streaming, publishing management, sync licensing, video/audio monetization, and digital content management company based in Orlando, Florida. The company’s distribution platform is considered as avant-garde by experts. GLAD Empire has a high-quality team of distribution experts in a total of more than 26 countries, with total and direct access to all the most lucrative digital platforms.

The motivation to create GLAD Empire came to Camille Soto (Founder and Co-CEO) after the tragic death of her cousin, Alejandro Felix Tomei, who was artistically known as ‘Get Low.’ After Get Low’s death, Camille started the label, Get Low Record, which eventually rebranded to what we know today as GLAD Empire (Get Low Artist Development).

“We request the specific assets needed to make their music available and we handle everything for them as well, including marketing strategies and content optimization.”

The love for music drives GLAD. The pioneer of the Latin Rap scene, Alberto Mendoza, popularly known as MC Ceja, is the Co-CEO of GLAD Empire. He has famously influenced many top artists of today, including Residente, Wisin, Tego Calderon, and many more. “With a 25-year career and access to the correct tools, he provides mentoring and guidance that helps young independent artists find their way through this complicated business module we call music,” said Camille Soto, Founder and Co-CEO. Responsible for all the audio recording and video production teams, Mendoza is a fan of the perfect sound and takes pride in having only the best equipment available at GLAD Empire for other artists to use. His presence truly makes GLAD the home of avant-garde and premium music.

In a brief interview, Camille Soto explained to us about the processes that GLAD Empire uses to help musicians navigate the music business and more. Read on for the excerpts from the interview.

Q. Sometimes the processes are complex in digital distribution platforms for artists to understand. How do you make the processes more feasible and transparent?

We guide the artists step-by-step through the process and for those who want to learn, we are available to answer questions. We request the specific assets needed to make their music available and we handle everything for them as well, including marketing strategies and content optimization. We also have give artists and labels access to our online dashboard where they can access their analytics and accounting at any time, making our business as transparent as possible.

Q. What are critical issues addressed by your digital distribution platform?

The critical issues addressed by our digital platform is 24/7 access to real-time analytics, with detailed consumption of information by country, source, age, gender, etc that helps us create highly effective marketing strategies.

Q. It is quite difficult to achieve success in every marketing campaign that is developed. How do you overcome failures?

By taking risks. The worst attempt is the one that is not made. Not every campaign is successful, but regardless of its success, it ends up being promotion for the product. We have faith that those small efforts will eventually add up.

Q. Developing specialized services for artists need support of high-level talent and dedication. How did you manage to form your dream team?

We hire strictly professionals in every service we offer. If I do not do it myself, I have a person that is more than capable of doing the work required. Everyone who works for GLAD, shares our vision of growing and it is our desire that each member of our team grows professionally too. We do not work from 9-to-5, or have a specific schedule. We work with passion and love what we do.

Q. How do you market your services?

We get a lot of clients by word-of-mouth and use social media as well to promote our company, such as Instagram, Facebook. But really, most of our new clients come from referrals of artists or labels we already work with.

Q. Is there anything exciting coming up for GLAD?

We just finished the construction of our new streaming studio for live concerts, podcasts, private events, and content production overall. We also just opened our new production division, Conteni2 Media Group, LLC, which will offer video and film production services.

The Leaders

Alberto Mendoza and Camille Soto were both recently featured in INC magazine as the owners of GLAD Empire, company ranked #1 in the Regional 5000 Series, as the fastest growing company in Florida. Camille has also been chosen by Billboard Magazine as a Latin Power Player two years in a row in 2019 and 2020, as well as an Independent Power Player in 2020 and highlighted as being an influential woman in the music business.

“We guide the artists step-by-step through the process and for those who want to learn, we are available to answer questions.”