Sandira is a Berlin-based Business Development & Partnerships specialist with over 20 years of international experience in the creative and start-up ecosystems in Berlin, London, New York, Providence, and Austin.
She started her career by assisting and learning the business playbook from top CEOs & founders in New York & New England. Developing a strong portfolio and background in partnerships, marketing, and events, she later went on to spearhead Brand & Marketing for global brands, closed high-profile partnership deals, and helped launch successful business accelerator programs.
She is the Director of Partnerships at Fotografiska Berlin, The Contemporary Museum of Photography, Art & Culture, and oversees their strategic cooperation with brands and organizations.
She held previous positions as Director of Partnerships at Transmoderna, Head of Global Brand for music tech conglomerate inMusic Brands, Akai Pro & M-Audio and Director of Partnerships & Creative Innovation at Factory Berlin, Germany’s largest members club for innovators and entrepreneurs, and a key player in Berlin’s tech & startup ecosystem. At Factory, she led their partnerships portfolio with accounts such as Mastercard, Miro for Startups, Google for Startups, Beats, Sónar, and SEAT, among others. She was part of the DE&I leadership board that helped drive change in internal and external policies, events programming curation, bookings, partnerships, and programs such as Stealth Mode (female founders program). She was the curator and initiator of the 2019-2021 Artist In Residence program together with Sónar+D, powered by Beats by Dr. Dre, where she empowered artists to turn ideas into business ventures and scale them toward European consortium funding through a 6,000-member entrepreneurial campus and its 'Creators Lab.' The programs artist research & exhibition works have won awards such as the Lumen Prize, ADC Gold Cube, S+T+ARTS, Media Futures and more.
Some notable projects include Alicia Keys, Young Guru, John Carpenter, Tony Visconti, Rough Trade, Kill Rock Stars, Red Bull Music Studios, Kickstarter, Keychange, MIT, CTM Festival, Tresor, Sónar, Beats, SoundCloud, Transmoderna, Rockstar Games, Grover, NeXR Technologies x On Point Studios, TikTok, Johnnie Walker, IFA Berlin and Hinge.
Her talks and presentations include Soho House Berlin, Frankfurt Musikmesse, Brighton Music Conference, MUTEK Montreal, BIME Pro, Iceland Airwaves, Tech Open Air, Ars Electronica, BIMM Institute, C/O Pop, Pop-Kultur, WISE, Reeperbahn Festival, Refuge Worldwide radio, and Factory Berlin x WeTransfer.
She was selected in 2017 as one of ten innovators in Germany for Keychange, a pioneering European initiative advocating for gender equity and systemic change in the music industry to help shift policies at the European Parliament. Her work has since been recognized by shesaidso ‘Alt-Power 100 Music List’ (2019), which is a response to Billboard’s Power 100 Music List with the aim to challenge conventional music industry standards, and most recently she was listed in Business Punk’s '101 Minds to Watch' in 2025.