Korrine Sky
Cultural brand strategy, proven at commercial scale.
I help artists, founders, cultural businesses, brands and institutions build relevance, trust, authority and commercial value in culture.
Cultural brand strategist and entertainment executive. CEO of SMADE Group, talent agent, and editor of Culture & Commerce.
Who I work with
Three routes into the same discipline.
Pick the one that describes you. Each route goes to the relevant work, the proof behind it and one way to start.
The receipts
Six numbers, before anything else.
Every one of these is attached to a case study you can read. The full archive, press and essays hold the rest.
Worked with
What I actually do
Cultural brand strategy is one discipline. This is what it means.
I work out who you are trying to reach, what those people already believe, and what would make them care, trust you and act. Then I build the positioning, the audience strategy and the campaign that gets it there. Talent representation and live culture are the same discipline applied at full commercial scale.
Most recent flagship
Exec Branch LEGACY, 650+ delegates across two editions.
650+
Delegates across the Zimbabwe and UK editions
The Executive Branch
LEGACY celebrated five years of The Executive Branch while helping establish what came next: a conference experience connected to a platform that can support women throughout the year.
My role
Narrative strategy · Programme development · Speaker bookings · Moderator · Partnerships and sponsorships · Companion app co-development · Membership co-development
Recent work
More selected work.
August 2025
Rotimi
Rotimi's first Leicester show, sold out to capacity.
My rolePromotion · Booking · Artist liaison
350Tickets, sold out to capacity
August 2026, Timaya, 20 Years of Music
Timaya
A sold-out O2 homecoming for twenty years of Timaya.
My roleProject Leadership · Production · Marketing · Artist Relations
20Years of Afrobeats, staged live
Festival cycle
Afri-Fest East
A festival programmed for the audience it says it serves.
My roleFestival Delivery · Talent · Partnerships
4Headline acts booked for 2026
Live culture
A sold-out O2 homecoming for twenty years of Timaya.
Timaya Day · indigo at The O2 · Project Leadership · Marketing · Artist Relations
Talent
A selection of the artists I have worked with.
The thinking
I don't just work inside culture. I study it.
Essays, frameworks and a working library on authority, credibility and access.
PDF, free download
The Cultural Brand Strategy Toolkit
The working document behind the frameworks: the definition, the five principles, the glossary, the Clarity to Connection™ model and the Cultural Alignment Filter™. Free, no gate you cannot walk through.
By Korrine Sky
Culture & Commerce
The magazine.
Long-form features and learning notes on how culture turns into commerce.
Cover story17 September 2026 · ~13 min read
I Thought You Guys Said Ginger People Were Black?
Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, Gaza and what happens when being the good guy is no longer enough.
Culture & Commerce15 September 2026 · 7 min read
Do You Really Need to Sing in English to Go International?
African artists keep being told the reason they haven't gone international is that they sing in their own language. But the real barrier is infrastructure.
Culture & CommerceSeptember 2026 · ~8 min read
Every Year, The Same Panel
Reflections from Aberdeen Music Week 2026, on conversation without consequence, Scotland's touring access problem, and what a sold-out show in a market nobody trusted actually proves.
Work with me · The flagship
Founder Brand & Direction.
Strategy, story and a focused public presence, shaped and built with me. For founders whose story no longer fits in one sentence.
- 10x
- Audience growth for Ruth Kudzai
- 5x
- LinkedIn growth for Dr Faye Bate
- 3
- YouTube series for boohooMAN with MAKO Studios
The short version
Asylum seeker, teenage trader, medical student, crisis organiser, chief executive.
I arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker, learned early that credibility is something you build in public, and turned that instinct into a craft. It reads like a detour until you notice every step was about the same thing.
2,000+ students evacuated from Ukraine in 2022, with borders still moving.
Get in touch
Tell me what you are building.
Pick the option that fits and the form asks only what is relevant.
Culture & Commerce
One letter. Culture, audience and commercial strategy.
Notes on how culture becomes audience, and how audience becomes revenue. Written for artists, teams and brands building beyond their home market.