A Bermudian musician and social-media influencer found herself on a panel of entrepreneurs during a conference for business magazine Forbes.

Kaelyn Kastle said attending the Forbes Under 30 Summit felt like an “out-of-body experience” after meeting so many influential figures and delivering a speech on her own success.

She told The Royal Gazette: “I guess it went really well because I had a lot of great feedback.

“They’ve even tried to pre-book me to come back next year.

“It was a little overwhelming, but at the same time I sat on a panel with some great ladies.”

The event, held in Phoenix, Arizona, invited more than 4,000 successful young people to help build a social network and develop their careers.

The singer, whose real name is Kaelyn Castle, adopted Kastle as her stage name. She said that Forbes reached out last month initially to have her moderate the discussion, but decided to have her on once they received her updated résumé.

She said while she had spoken for many other organisations, such as search engine Google and Black lifestyle magazine Essence, this was the first time she sat on a Forbes panel.

Kastle added: “They wanted me to share my experience and be able to speak to other creatives, or those who are trying to develop a business from a small place to a larger scale, to show my stepping stones and delve into my business model.”

Kastle was listed in Forbes’s 30 Under 30 list in 2022, which recognises young influential figures.

She said the event allowed her to reconnect with other members of her 30 Under 30 cohort, whom she had only met through video conferences.

Kastle spoke alongside beauty influencers Golloria George and Toni Bravo.

Her speech, she said, centred on “the development of creators to founders and founders to creators”.

She explained that she and others managed to use social-media content creation to make enough money to jump-start her other ventures.

Kastle added that her experience came from her rise as a content creator to a recording artist.

She said: “It’s just about how to build ownership, how much it matters and how to use the visibility I’ve gained to create personal infrastructure.

“Being able to return and contribute to the conversation from a place of that experience and growth really meant a lot to me.

“I felt like I was carrying the responsibility of showing that someone who has talent can take it to a global level.”

Kastle said the summit also gave her a chance to sit in on other panels and learn more about how to development her business.

She said she hoped to lean more into marketing and connecting with other business developers.

She added: “It’s all about growth and development at the end of the day.”

Kastle has lived in Atlanta, Georgia, for about seven years and now helps to run a content creation studio, Collab Studios, which focuses on creators of colour.

She specialises in dancehall-infused pop music, with her hit single, Big Pressure, and accompanying music video, filmed along Bermuda’s Court Street, being released last June.