Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcasts featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Today's episode offers a rare opportunity to bring microphones into the marble covered halls of CIA. My Variety colleague Katsey Stephan and I talked to not one, not two, but six senior CIA agents about the state of the industry and the
state of their agency. These half dozen ten percenters, to use Variety slanguage for talent agents, represent disciplines across the agency. They are stars in their fields, and they all happen to be women. The idea for this conversation started months ago with my interest in looking at how the purchase of ICM Partners has changed CIA. That's seven hundre earned fifty million dollar deal was completed three years ago. Next month.
It's CIA's largest ever acquisition. In twenty twenty three, CIA itself saw majority ownership change hands from private equity giant TPG to French business mogul Francois Henri Finnelt and his Artemis Holding Company. In the last few years, CIA has taken steps to show that it is nurturing a next generation of agency leaders. It has assembled internal boards and leadership structures designed to expand the scope of its decision makers.
This comes as CIA has faced some outside criticism and some notable defections amid the perception that there's a ceiling for high achievers at the agency. Like other large agencies and studios, CIA has also historically had a big gender gap at the top that is changing and that is illustrated by the composition of our roundtable. We recorded this on April fifteenth, sitting across from one another on couches in a COZYCIA meeting room. Our panelists are familiar names
to industry insiders. I'll let them quickly introduce themselves.
Tiffany Ward, Jennifer.
Joel, Litha Joseph Mattelis.
Maha Dakiel, Urlita Fowler, Lara Sackett.
Tiffany Ward is CIA Managing Director and scripted television agent. Jennifer Joel is a literary agent and co head of CIA Books. Lisa Joseph Mettelis is a member of the CIA Board and head of Athlete Brand Strategy and Entertainment at CIA. Sports. Maha Dakiel is CIA Managing director and motion picture agent, Ourlita Fowler is a digital media agent and head of Digital Media Lifestyle Talent, and Lara Sackett
is co head of the Production Department. Women have a lot to say about agenty, the entertainment economy, the rise of social media creators, and the privilege of working with artists. Our free wheeling conversation is coming up after this break and we're back. Here comes our lively conversation with six top CIA agents.
Tiffany Ward, Jennifer.
Joel, Lisa Joseph Mattulis.
Maha Dakiel, Urlita Fowler, Lara Sackett.
Thank you all so much for joining me and my coworker Katsi Stepan, who covers the talent agency business for us. We are really appreciative. This is a rare opportunity to speak with six senior leaders. We all know the beats that the business has really gone through in the last couple of years. The pandemic that strikes been a lot of change, a lot of contraction, a lot of consolidation
in the business. See itself had quite a transformative event a couple of years ago in purchasing ICM, and so it's a great opportunity for us to talk about where the agency is, where you see the marketplace going.
What is great about this place in particular is it was never perfect. Nothing ever is. But what it always was from the day I got here and continues to be is it's fertile ground for change, and the people here can be the drivers of the change.
You don't hit walls here, you know, and when we do come together. And that's what was so great about that first early board that spawned this newer board, that there was a recognition at a certain point that three or four people could not run this company alone. An operations committee, as you guys have noticed, has been put in place in the last several years. When I came here, you know, expenses were run by one guy. You would go, it is super nice to him, And that's not how it's run anymore.
I came to CIA as part of the ICM acquisition, and so that was in the middle of the pandemic. So my initial introduction to the motion picture meeting was on zoom. So it was just all of these little squares of everybody's face. And it wasn't just when you were talking about having a voice. Everybody had a voice, you know, I was seeing a screen of everybody's sort of equal part in the process, as opposed to sort of sitting in a room where somebody's at the front
there speaking, everybody else is listening. And then so that was my introduction to the way that that meeting was run and the way that people communicated with one another. And then when Zoom came to an end and we were in person, to then see the translation of that Zoom meeting to an in person experience where it's very much the same. You know, we're sitting around a table and as many people as can fit in a room, but it's never just one person speaking.
I think we really benefited from the integration with ICM because I think that even though as has been referenced many times, we have a great value system of taking care of each other, we have a great value system of working in teams which usually include people from different experiences, which makes the work better and I think a better
experience for the clients. We are as well as said, we're perfect, and we're curious about always evolving and getting better, and sometimes the best way to do that is to be confronted with a different way of working.
Here, Katsay steers the conversation to talking about social media and the opportunities it creates for artists and how that impacts agenting.
Well, I'm so curious how the current state of the creator economy and how that's factoring into your everyday at TAA, and also how you view in the scope of the entire entertainment industry, the creator economy.
The digital industry as a whole is something that it has been an industry that's been evolving, like literally, it feels like every two years sort of the rules change. But I've found that it's always been incredibly exciting. I think the world between creators who have their digital ecosystem, their online community, and the world of traditional Hollywood has
been coming closer and closer together. Our point of view has always been like, we're signing and working with the best creators, artists, taste makers, and our position has always been to like connect them to the broader agency. So for CIA works a bit different than other places because as a client of the agency, you have a team, and you have a team from different disciplines, and so when I think about someone like Eliza Koshi who and
we signed her. We signed her off of Vine because we saw how incredibly talented, funny sharp she was, right and she's doing the short form content, and then we really helped her expand and grow within the entertainment industry. So she just wrapped a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think her agent team now has like fourteen people on it across the agency, and she's doing everything from films, television, endorsements,
all while also monetizing her platform. Right now, what we're seeing is that a lot of incredible IP is being generated from the YouTube community. So when you think about late night television right now, if you want to launch a film, a TV show, an album, you're going to go on Chicken Shop Date, right Amelia de Moldenburg as a client of ours, or you're going to go on to Hot Ones, right. And so that's been incredible. We've also been seeing clients who've been focused on actually creating studios.
So we represent someone by the name of Darman and he creates scripted content on his YouTube.
I'm a big d okay, So.
Dar you know, he has his own studio now, right, and we've been helping him to expand his businesses both like online right but also in other areas, and so I've really been excited for what's happening right now.
Social media has been a game changer for athletes in terms of building businesses, building brands. Can you talk about how much or how little you have integrated social media and what they can do in that channel where they can talk directly to fans.
It's been an interesting ride because athletes are now viewed as content creators as well. I think when social first came out, no one knew what it was or where it could lead. But what it did was create non traditional media platforms and really put the narrative in athletes hands, where before you would have to get that through traditional media outlet and so or understanding a player's mindset after a game, after a big loss or after a big win, or what are they like you always what happens next?
Well you see what happens next in real time because they're posting about it. And so I think there was a little bit of fear at the beginning when it came to social media because it's like, okay, it's like kind of like the wild, wild West, And I think there were like important lessons to be learned about what should be shared and how should be shared, some hard lessons for athletes.
And maybe not every waking thought, not everything.
We don't need to know everything that you're thinking. So there was some hard lessons to be learned, and I think as an agency, you know, we had to. It wasn't a question or thought of being involved, because part of us is protecting the athlete and educating them in the process. And so I think over the last few years you've seen a big shift in that where athletes are starting to understand that they have a direct connection to their fans. How can they tell their stories best,
how they can capture the headlines. Athletes aren't going to traditional outlets anymore. They're breaking the news on their own. We don't need a press release.
I can just show this, you know.
So it's kind of like it's been really really disruptive, and even through that, athletes now want to be the content creators they want. You know, we signed Jesser, who is a huge YouTube so I don't even want to like put him in that box of just like a YouTuber, but like he's built an incredible platform around his love of the game and his love of basketball, and to see our star athletes wanting to go hang out with Jesser it's like you all are. He wants to be you,
you want to be him. So how do we like pair the two up and make it a win win? So it's been really interesting and I think for us, we're going to see a lot more. I think athletes have realized and recognized their power and recognized that they have incredible stories to tell. So whether it's on social or whether it's through building their own production companies and media empires, it's no longer just an athlete and what
they do on the court. But I think in every scenario here, whether they're writing a New York Times bestseller or being part of being part of a production team or eping a film, they're touching so many different lanes and so many verticals. So they are a true multi hyphen it of talent in all areas and they I think they've awakened to their power and they own that now.
And also I think to the social point, you know, we've heard some you know, some artists today have said, Oh, when I'm auditioning for something, they ask me how many followers I have on social media. I'm curious for those of you who are you know more on the TV and film side, how much is that something that you're paying attention to when you're going into a deal making process a client's social following who isn't necessarily in the creator economy.
Early on, it was a little more prevalent because studios thinking about casting creators almost as it's done as a and have it be a part of their marketing plan. But in recent years that's not the biggest factor anymore, right I also because a big part of what we're seeing is that if you are on a hitshel if you're on a hit show on Netflix, you can literally go from having two thousand followers to two million.
All of our clients are ultimately trying to reach, whether you call them fans or audiences or readers, they're trying to make a connection with people who will consume what they're creating. Social media is definitely one measure that the buyers of their intellectual property or services use to try and figure out how much audience or viewers or readers
or listeners they're already bringing to the table. And we think of it more generally as platform and the platform can be your socials, it can be your extent readers or your extent listeners, but a measure of your ability to connect with the people who you are ultimately trying to reach as you create and new art, I think is certainly one factor that all of our buyers and all of our businesses have to be responsible in considering.
But I hope that because we are all in creative businesses to our latest point, ultimately sort of the talent and the power of the product is the most important and factor for them to consider. And certainly history is a guide to a creator and their ability to connect
with with the larger audience. But I think most of us are in this business because we know that there's something that is more than measurable or something that is immeasurable, which is the feeling that we all get when we watch performance that moves us, or you read something that changes the way you know you understand the way the world works, or that you watch a game and you realize that your heart is fluttering and you have no
stake in the outcome of that particular conversation, but you're moved.
I couldn't agree with Jen Moore and the only thing I'll add is that for those of us who are working in storytelling, and I think there's stories in some ways, and what all of us do. We came out here because we were captured somehow by the magic of a really resonant human story, right. And data is something that we pride ourselves on having sort of best in class service around, whether it be social or ratings, you know, the whole the whole spectrum. And that's important. It's valuable
for us, it's valuable and deal making. It's valuable in terms of giving our clients some kind of transparent feedback about performance. But the other part of it is that there's no algorithm on earth that would have told you
to make adolescens right. It's just magical resonance storytelling. The more that we can keep, you know, to what to what Jenna is talking about, which is the common denominator of just a really resonant, specific, magical point of view from an artist or artist that comes together in a serendipitous confluence of events that we all benefit from because it's human like, that's that's why we're here, you know.
So you have to balance both of those things, I think to do our job with a level of optimism and hope and excitement.
How does that spirit of being innovative and creative put pressure on you as agents? When your clients are being more entrepreneurial than ever before, how does that translate to your work?
I don't really consider it pressure. It's not this pressure of trying to stay ahead of the clients. It's this joy and real acceptance of also hopefully being thought leaders ourselves, pushing the boundaries, challenging systems, looking for different ways of doing things, leaning on one another in the different divisions. What are you learning, what are you finding? What patterns are you seeing? And really helping to business build and maybe even empire build. Not every single artist wants to
empire build. Sometimes they just want to tell a story, and we're certainly equipped to do that, but we are overqualified. Now our job description has expanded so much to being entrepreneurs ourselves, in house producers and cultural advocates that it's actually exciting time to be in the agency business because you see how we're expanding and morphing and understanding that we have to be all things to all people. Because artists are so expansive in their thinking, there's an impression
that we represent only stars. We represent people who are going to be stars, and yes, sometimes we represent people who are already stars. But the fun and the discovery of noting somebody's potential and then being a driver of it,
there's really no joy like that. It's maybe akin to parenting, but just to see somebody grow and go through phases and the deep history of knowing somebody and being with somebody for a very long time and being able to advise them through the highs and lows because obviously nobody stays on top every single second, and being there when they fall, and being the one that has you know, those of us in this room and all our colleagues
outside this room. Having to have the plan, the optimism and the creativity to be able to navigate next steps is.
Exciting.
It's not a pressure, not saying the job it's not high pressure, but that part of the job is really actually quite fun.
Some of you have collaborated between production, motion picture and television that there have been some recent projects that you guys have really had to come together on. So can you tell me a little more about how your teams work together, Just to.
Draft off of what Maha just said, One of the things that allows us to feel that joy and to sort of foster that entrepreneurialism is that we lean on each other all the time. So just an example, when Laura came in, you know, along with Ryan, Tracy and
many folks in a division that we hadn't had right production. Production, Yes, production, that was something that you know, for those of us who work in content, we maha and I hadn't benefited from that for I don't know the first ten to fifteen years of our time here, and it's been a
game changer. Anytime that there's a new show that is on the precipice of production, we are able to collaborate with a best in class group of advocates to say not just well, who's writing this and who will be the stars, but also who's making this right, and who's great at making it domestically internationally, and who's collaborated before. It's an incredible advantage, amazing.
Well, I feel the same, and I think when you see people in physical production, I hear this best in class a lot, and I think you see a lot of repeat collaborations because they work well. So people are working together again and again and they're growing their careers. They see where people have different avenues of creativity and strength, they pull in other people that they want to keep
working with again and again. And I think so we have a lot of these artists that have been building their careers forever building relationships, but then to have the strength of the best in class relationships that go on here to sort of see when these productions are just an idea, So to know when somebody is talking about a great book that's about to you know, it may not even be a book yet, you know, it's somebody's thought idea. It's an article, it's a book, it's a screenplay.
It's a filmmaker who really wants to collaborate with a particular actor. It's two actors that want to make a comedy. Just hearing that the kernels of ideas before they're i mean long before they become physical production is I think both inspiring. When you're talking about you know, how are we motivated on a daily basis? It does require a sort of entrepreneurial spirit because now we're seeing all these different avenues. We're not waiting for a go job, like
here's a go opportunity. It's sort of like all of these things that are possible, and I think building relationships earlier on being aware of, you know, particular interests and collaborations, it's been game changing for us.
Here, Katsy presses Jennifer Joel about the ever expanding world of sourcing literary content for adaptation in other mediums.
Jen adaptation game is so so broad, and I'm so curious how you even begin to identify what the right projects are that make themselves right for these adaptations, whether it's something whether you're sourcing from a book, a stage show. Obviously very wide that you're casting. So how do you sort through all the content that's out there.
I'm not sure that we're doing a sorting job as much as we are kind of building the library. And I think one of the great privileges of the combination of these agencies is the fact that the library is passive. We've got decades worth of phenomenal content, whether their books or their plays, or their podcasts or their kind of new online content. The fact that we have created so much excellent content is like a cant It's like a
candy shore for people to go play. In Great Thing, in particular about a long gest dating project which a book is often but all of these things can be is that somebody has already put years of thought and effort into imagining one version of a story or a
world or a series. And to Lara's point, in a way, it gives sort of a new creator who wants to reimagine, you know, it's looking for a world to reimagine or play around, and they're starting kind of way down the playing field because somebody else has already done that work. One of the great pleasures of the adaptations game and an agency like this is that that process can go both ways. So you are, in fact can go in
every way. You have an author who might imagine that a piece of content that they've made would be phenomenally reimagined in the hands of a certain director or a certain actor, a certain writer, and we have the ability to make those introductions. The reason that we've had so much success is that is that we have had the ability to let the people who make things find new ways to kind of work together and work off of each other.
The core film and television business has been through very you know, the headlines have been cuts and layoffs, and I do feel like the page turned in January and after California's horror Show, I do feel like the page did turn. But I would love your candid thoughts on whether you're you know you and your clients are feeling some contraction in the business or is the sense of contraction do you think overstated?
I think it comes in waves, and so I think during I mean, at least for sports right now, it's been great. I mean, our clients are probably making the most amount of money that they've ever made. It's been quite insane. Contracts that are going up, media rights that are going up. But it does come in waves, and I think for us as agents, as executives, as an agency, is really about staying consistent with our clients. And Maha
mentioned something earlier. It is just like being there for them in the highs and the lows of it, making them feel confident, making them feel that they're supported through the process, and really kind of like holding their hand through it. And I think there's no better feeling than knowing that, Okay, I might hit a low or something's not you know, hitting right, as we've all experienced in the last few years, but knowing that you're part of
a greater system. Agency representation that's not going to drop you because you know we're taking hits across the board, but is really going to be there to support because life is all about ways. What comes up will go down and vice versa, and so for us, it's also an opportunity to figure out how to be more creative.
The Hollywood community is a very resilient community because all the insanely thinkable things that we have faced should maybe signal that we should just all go home and give up. And I don't know anybody who wants to go home and give up. There's something about storytellers, the optimism of
having to create to idate. There's something so beautiful about that desire to reach other human beings and tell them that you see them, you feel them, or you want to show them something new, or you want them to escape something that they are feeling.
Our Lada. With general economic instability, are you seeing any contraction among brands? Is there a hesitancy right now?
There is a little contraction with brands we have seen because of the terroriffts. Some brands have pulled back some of their campaigns or paused it. But on the other hand, we have others that just.
Got offers today.
I think disruption creates opportunity, and so being in digital, we've always been sort of on this leading edge of what's next. We're always thinking about how do we help our clients monetize and expand. And you know, we just closed a deal for one of our just legendary Balk Show hosts who has an incredible library that's now going to become a fast channel. And so it's things like that that I think, you know, a couple of years ago, we wouldn't have thought about for our clients, and we're
thinking about that now, and so I see it. I'm an optimist.
What I found so encouraging is it's not sort of
an either or proposition. I feel like when we were kids, there were three television networks, and you know, it wasn't really like are you going to watch this channel or that, or are you going to watch TV or go to the movies on the weekend or I love the way that this whole entertainment business has evolved and that yeah, it might be a digital proposition, it might be something in a movie theater, it might be a musician films a concert, and then you go to the movies to
watch it just so many different avenues, and I think, again going back to just being in this building, so many different inspired experts who have these deep relationships. When you talk about taking care of your clients and really being forward thinking on their behalf, knowing what their strengths are, what their interests are, what their talents are, and then looking around at all the different avenues that they can pursue, and them coming to us with the different avenues that
they're thinking about. I just like the fact that nothing seems contracting to me. It just feels like different opportunities. It's going to change. We hope that it will evolve, but it doesn't feel like it's an either or. It just feels like more opportunities.
So I will take ideas from all of you. So kind of went last. I think what Maha said about kindness is first and foremost. You know, it's our value system, but I think the more we're kind to each other internally and externally, it really matters. Right now, the last five years have been really hard for everybody, no matter what business you're in, and I think the kindness and the reciprocy of spirit allows people to feel safe and
then they can do their best work. I think the curiosity of doing new things, like our leader was talking about, you know that we may not all be as well burst or immersed in as she might be, or whatever the area is. Being curious about what's possible, even in dark times is actually the genesis of doing great things and then believing. I think you said that it's all worth it right, like it was, Like I think William James correct me said that believe that your life is
worth living, and that belief will create the fact. And I like to think that believe that entertainment isn't vital to all of our lives, and our collectible belief will create that fact and will survive whatever obstacles, whatever head ones we're facing, will tell magical stories. I am not a Pollyanna, but I'm a believer. I think we're all optimist in this room, and I think we're probably all optimists in the building.
I'll speak of somebody who works in what is probably the oldest business in entertainment, publishing. Rumors of publishing's demise have persisted since the invention of the newspaper, when people wondered why you would ever read a book again when the information you know was going to be outdated, and that there was this new form of consuming information that would be by definition more current. But of course books
are still here. All of the businesses that we that we work in have survived these sort of eras of change. When the world is challenged as it is today, I think there is an even greater imperative for people who can explain it, who can contextualize what we're living through, who can provide hope and distraction. It is an incredible privilege to spend your professional life thinking about how to do those things. And I think we are all optimists.
I think we have to be optimists. I think this place sort of exists to help make the ground as fertile as possible for people who embrace the privilege of living a creative life.
Anything else that anybody wants to say. I feel like we've covered a lot of ground.
I wish listeners could see Lisa's nails.
I have been staring at that.
You can't see them. Thanks, I know, the company of women, thank you.
Thank you, thanks for putting up with us here.
We want to end this episode on an uplifting note. Here's a lightning round of clips of our guests talking about their mentors and formative career experiences. Katsy and I want to give our deep thanks to Ourlita, Jennifer, Laura, Lisa Maha and Tiffany for the privilege of their time and their thoughts.
When I got here, I saw Best Swafford, queen of the director's agents. Shortly after I got here. He'll whee Lee came with this Irish accent. She had started in a phone booth in Ireland, one of the best origin stories ever, and had the coolest haircut and would just tell everybody off all the time in the best, coolest, sexiest way.
I really had the opportunity to kind of learn by osmosis and again just having people who are very willing to mentor who I could ask questions. They would let me be a part of things I would do, like is it Monday? Yet.
It took me about five minutes of learning the business and looking around at the landscape to realize that the two best agents in the publishing business were Biggie Urban and Ester Newburgh, and that the way that I would be able to become what I hoped would be the best version of somebody in this industry was to go and learn from them.
There have been so many incredible people that have helped mentor and shape me, people like Christy Habigger and Terry Hanks, but then also Kevin Yvank.
Part of the reason why I even moved here was Michelle Kid, who has always been also a mentor to me. Anytime I had any issues, that would call Michelle, and Michelle was the one who really encouraged me and say, Lisa, this is the time. We need more women in our building. We need more women leaders in our building.
I always felt that my capacity here was my limitation, which is to say that I always felt, with women like Resa Gertner and Sonya Rosenfeld and Hilda Quilli and Beus Wolferd who came before me, that I was really being judged on my ability to be an advocate with integrity and creativity who fought hard for her clients. And in turn, I feel like I've been given the space to try to do that for other women.
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