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Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with

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Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm

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Speaker 1: Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My

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Speaker 1: guest is Scherise Clark Suarez, founder and CEO of Harbor

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Speaker 1: View Equity. Clark Suarez is a busy investor who is

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Speaker 1: making interesting bets on music, film and television. She's doing

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Speaker 1: so at a time of genuine chaos in the traditional business.

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Speaker 2: The industry's largest.

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Speaker 1: Companies are struggling to turn a profit on film and

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Speaker 1: TV production. So what does she see that others don't.

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Speaker 1: Clark Suarez has a lot to say about that. In

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Speaker 1: our wide ranging interview, she explains the motivation behind her

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Speaker 1: recent investment in Charles Kings Macro and in the production

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Speaker 1: company Mucho mass Media. She also expects to be busy

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Speaker 1: in the coming months as the media metamorphosis can continues

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Speaker 1: and bigger companies let go of interesting assets. Clark Suarez

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Speaker 1: learned the ropes of private equity, credit markets, and film

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Speaker 1: financing during her fifteen years at Morgan Stanley. In twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one, she planted her flag as harbor View Equity.

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Speaker 2: In Newark, New Jersey.

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Speaker 1: She'll explain how the company has made its mark in

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Speaker 1: just a few years.

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Speaker 2: Right after this break.

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Speaker 1: And we're back with more from harbor View Equity CEO

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Speaker 1: Sharise Clark Suarez.

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Speaker 3: So nice to be with you. Thank you for having

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Speaker 3: me appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Well, harbor View has been on my radar for a while.

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Speaker 1: I've seen you've done some deals in the music arena

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Speaker 1: and I've noted those with interest. And then what really

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Speaker 1: got all my attention because I am an old TV

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Speaker 1: geek I have covered television for Variety for a long time,

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Speaker 1: and I noted with interest that you you made an

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Speaker 1: investment in an interesting company called Mucho Moss and that

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Speaker 1: develops a particular kind of content that have After talking

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Speaker 1: with you, I know that you really have a strong

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Speaker 1: sense about where the media marketplace is going, where there

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Speaker 1: are investment opportunities. And so after a few minutes on

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Speaker 1: the phone, I was like, we have to take this

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. So I'm so glad, thank you for

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Speaker 1: making the trek from Newark, where you are based. We

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Speaker 1: were just talking about lots of good things going on

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Speaker 1: in Newark, a nice example of civic and public and

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Speaker 1: private partnership. What a concept. We'll talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: about Newark at the end, but let me just let's

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Speaker 1: take the thirty thousand foot view and let me ask you,

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Speaker 1: as a smaller and independent investment firm. Media companies of

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Speaker 1: all sizes are struggling to find the path to old

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Speaker 1: fashioned profits that this business used to be known for.

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Speaker 1: So what is it that amid all of this chaos

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Speaker 1: and all of this tummult, what is it that you

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Speaker 1: see that is driving your investment strategy?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely well, listen, I think one of the things that's

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Speaker 3: central to our value system at Harvard View is really

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Speaker 3: about honing in on and identifying where audience is. And

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Speaker 3: I think you and I talked about this a little bit,

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Speaker 3: but everybody who I talked to the conversation is the same.

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Speaker 3: We all have lots of music. We're listening to more

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Speaker 3: music than we ever have in our entire lifetime. We

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Speaker 3: can all trade notes on all our favorite shows that

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Speaker 3: we're watching at nauseum over and over and over again.

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Speaker 3: And so the audience experience and demand for nuanced and

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Speaker 3: specific content to them for them has not gone away.

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Speaker 3: It's only gotten enriched as the way that we experience

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Speaker 3: that content has become more and more decentralized. Right, growing up,

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Speaker 3: when it was Mussy TV on Thursday night on NBC,

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Speaker 3: we all sat down at eight o'clock and watched the

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Speaker 3: series of shows that came one after the other. On

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Speaker 3: In New York it's NBC Channel four. So that was

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Speaker 3: much more of a top down push to everybody believing

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Speaker 3: in and buying into a centralized IP theme. Today, audiences

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Speaker 3: can make much more nuanced and specific choices based on

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Speaker 3: the way that technology platforms exist, Its streaming platforms exist,

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Speaker 3: the way that kids find content through YouTube and other

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Speaker 3: types of digital platforms, and so that paradigm in that shift,

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Speaker 3: to me is a fundamental economic infrastructure and scaffolding that

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Speaker 3: doesn't go away. Right. Storytelling experiencing music is fundamental to

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Speaker 3: the human condition, and so that is a truth that

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Speaker 3: stands the test of time, whether it was one hundred

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Speaker 3: years ago to fifty years in the future. That's a

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Speaker 3: constant truth. What's also a constant truth is that the

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Speaker 3: creative spirit reigns stronger and more active than ever. Right,

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Speaker 3: there's lots of really inspired creatives both in the film

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Speaker 3: and television world, as well as in the music world

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Speaker 3: and other types of forms of content. And so that

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Speaker 3: means that there's an abundance of opportunities to also choose from.

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Speaker 3: There's a huge economy of people and creators who are

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Speaker 3: creating really great or ideating really great opportunity sets. What

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Speaker 3: the chaos is about the large institutional frameworks that were

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Speaker 3: built for another age.

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Speaker 2: Built for tune in Thursdays at night.

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Speaker 3: They were built at nine and then further built for

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Speaker 3: you know the cable package, right, the basic cable package,

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Speaker 3: which were really attractive economics for a very long time

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Speaker 3: that leaned on you know, ratings that only sampled household

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Speaker 3: rather that got down to very specific unit by unit

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Speaker 3: audience engagement. And now with the decentralized ways we experience content,

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Speaker 3: that whole path to audience has completely unpended. But you

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Speaker 3: have these large institutional frames that were built for again

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Speaker 3: a yesteryear. It's almost like we're going through, particularly on

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Speaker 3: the media landscape. I liken it to two points in

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Speaker 3: time in the music space. I call this for the

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Speaker 3: media moment, it's Napster moment. In the industrialized revolution. We're

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Speaker 3: going from horse and buggy into you know, motorized cars.

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Speaker 3: But when you have a large institution or several large

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Speaker 3: institutions that have stables of horses and barnyards of carriages.

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Speaker 3: It's so hard to just shift done a dime.

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Speaker 2: And they know how to turn out those buggy whips.

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Speaker 3: And they know how to turn out those buggy whips

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Speaker 3: and get everybody on them and it gets you across.

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Speaker 3: And it may not be the most efficient, and it's

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Speaker 3: hell of expensive, but that's kind of what you got.

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Speaker 3: It's hard to turning that on a dime, and it's disruptive,

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Speaker 3: and there's a lot of good people with great skill

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Speaker 3: sets in those organizations, but a lot of that has

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Speaker 3: to probably be rationalized to meet the moment. So that's

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Speaker 3: I think the chios that we're feeling. What gives me

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Speaker 3: excitement is the two pieces that I started with, the

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Speaker 3: audience and the creator, And so we just got to

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Speaker 3: figure out how to get the creator to the audience

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Speaker 3: more efficiently in a way that optimizes for the exact moment.

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Speaker 3: We also, I think, as a community around this space,

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Speaker 3: as investors in the space, executives in the space, have

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Speaker 3: to start thinking about.

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Speaker 2: How we do.

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Speaker 3: More with less. Right like we as technologies has advanced,

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Speaker 3: you would think the content costs would come down, but

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Speaker 3: they haven't. But that's again a little bit about how

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Speaker 3: the business was built and shaped over the last fifteen

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Speaker 3: or so years. For the you know, the cost plus

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Speaker 3: model really encourage that. Right, Like, if I'm a producer

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Speaker 3: making something for one hundred dollars, twenty dollars is more

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Speaker 3: than and get paid a cost plus fee of twenty percent,

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Speaker 3: twenty dollars is more than ten dollars if I made

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Speaker 3: it for fifty dollars, right, So, like we had an

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Speaker 3: incentive structure that really actually optimized costs to a higher

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Speaker 3: right to be higher.

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Speaker 1: The incentives were aligned, but not in the right direction.

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Speaker 3: They were aligned to higher costs. And so now we

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Speaker 3: see the institutional frame and scaffolding needing to change and

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Speaker 3: change rapidly. But they're huge, their laryers, they're complex there,

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Speaker 3: they've got lots of various tentacles. But they also need

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Speaker 3: to be thinking about how to get to audience faster

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Speaker 3: and cheaper, but also get to audience in a more

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Speaker 3: cost effective way. The cost per hour of programming cannot

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Speaker 3: cost the same as a cost in the last ten

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Speaker 3: to fifteen.

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Speaker 1: Years, five million dollars for a half.

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Speaker 2: Hour show is kind of the a half hour you know, comedy.

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Speaker 1: Maybe not a not a traditional multi cam sitcom, but

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Speaker 1: even single camera. And I've had many producers tell me

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Speaker 1: that this is beyond it's it's profligate in the extreme

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Speaker 1: because it's people can sense that it's hurt you know,

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Speaker 1: I think the smart people can sense that this level

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Speaker 1: of spending is actually hurting the business.

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Speaker 3: And the yeah at does right. And you know, I've

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Speaker 3: had conversations where people are like, well, you know, the

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Speaker 3: audience deserves one hundred million dollar project. Well, like, the

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Speaker 3: thing is the ROI to one hundred million dollars project

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Speaker 3: is proliferation of that project everywhere. Or to your point,

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Speaker 3: a five million dollar an episode or ten million dollars

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Speaker 3: per hour let's say, you know, against eight hours of programming,

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Speaker 3: that's eighty million bucks. Like even and because of how

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Speaker 3: nuanced our viewership is, it's really hard. Like I could

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Speaker 3: probably list a show for you today that I think

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Speaker 3: is amazing. I really enjoyed it. Maybe it cost five

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Speaker 3: to ten million dollars an episode, maybe let's say five

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Speaker 3: on the lower end the spectrum, And there's a good

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Speaker 3: chance you've never even heard of it. But not because

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Speaker 3: the show isn't good and all the various things, and

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Speaker 3: so when you add all that up together, like how

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Speaker 3: do you pencil from just a pure math perspective, an

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Speaker 3: ROI on a fifty million dollar eight episode opportunity set,

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Speaker 3: given how decentralized the accesses and my list of things

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Speaker 3: that I watch and enjoy are probably distinctly different than yours.

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Speaker 3: Maybe there's one or two things that are overlapped, but

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Speaker 3: it's distinctly different. And you multiply that by billions of

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Speaker 3: people and that just continues to happen. So it doesn't

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Speaker 3: mean that audience doesn't deserve great things. They need to

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Speaker 3: deserve it at a better price point is sort of

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Speaker 3: I think what's interesting. So my excitement is that one,

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Speaker 3: the audience is there and it's enriched. Two technology has

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Speaker 3: really improved how you can get to audience faster and cheaper.

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Speaker 3: But then three, from a cost perspective, there's got to

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Speaker 3: be a way. And there's a lot of creators that

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Speaker 3: I think are going to come out of this shakedown

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Speaker 3: with this chaos, who are excited about having more aligned

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Speaker 3: interests and having more cost effective ways to getting product

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Speaker 3: to market. But as the institutional scaffolding starts to change

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Speaker 3: in order to meet the moment. One of the things

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Speaker 3: that will become more and more critical and may even

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Speaker 3: become as a consequence, more transparent is data and engaged audiences.

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Speaker 3: Like last year, as Ray and I did a talk

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Speaker 3: at Milkan and we were talking about how she had

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Speaker 3: more visibility and transparency into how her content was performing

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Speaker 3: when she was on YouTube, because you get really instant feedback,

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Speaker 3: so you know who your audience was, where you feed them,

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Speaker 3: how you feed them, how you serve them. In today's environment,

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Speaker 3: as we start shifting to figure out how do we

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Speaker 3: find and identify ROI, is some more of that going

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Speaker 3: to be paid for? From an app perspective, I think

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Speaker 3: advertisers should, if they aren't, start demanding, you know, real

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Speaker 3: audience visibility against that and demanding that audience visibility gives

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Speaker 3: both the brands and the studio systems or the producers

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Speaker 3: have said content transparency on that audience. But I think

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Speaker 3: increasingly creators can start to get that same transparency in

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Speaker 3: the audience engagement. Now that everybody may love what that

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Speaker 3: audience engagement says and may say nobody's watching right right,

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Speaker 3: but it can then align reward with where there is

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Speaker 3: high engagement and high value and then create better alignment

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Speaker 3: over time. So I'm really excited about that too. I

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Speaker 3: see that on the horizon, and that continues to make

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Speaker 3: things more investible. One of the reasons why music became

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Speaker 3: so investible over the last you know, decade with real

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Speaker 3: institutional capital and force is that transparency on usage, that

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Speaker 3: transparency on cash and cash generation and from one channels,

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Speaker 3: it's model, it's forecastable, and it gives you real currency,

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Speaker 3: and then that currency became an ability to be a

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Speaker 3: center point for transaction exchange right between virons. You can

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Speaker 3: forecast like you said, yeah, I can now see it.

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Speaker 3: I can tell you how much I'm going to pay

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Speaker 3: you as a seller. Have that information and then we

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Speaker 3: can engage across a conversation based on fact versus based

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Speaker 3: on only feeling. And it's not to say that the

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Speaker 3: art isn't important, right Like for us as a firm,

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Speaker 3: we again center audience, but we also center the creator

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Speaker 3: in a way that the art is super important. But

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Speaker 3: we believe that the art will drive the science, right Like,

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Speaker 3: when we can have measurable information, then you can see

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Speaker 3: if the art will drive the science, and people will

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Speaker 3: show up and engage.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's certainly what Netflix is doing now, is

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Speaker 2: that they can see you know, exactly what's percolating under

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Speaker 2: that well stocked in that well stocked larder.

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Speaker 3: That's exactly right. So we think that those two things

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Speaker 3: are true. I think there's still ill opportunity in the

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Speaker 3: marketplace to dig deeper in how we get to specific audience,

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Speaker 3: specifically around film and television. Now we're still I think

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Speaker 3: because the model has been to spend so much per

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Speaker 3: hour or per project, that it's always the sense of

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Speaker 3: whether it's theatrical marketing or marketing for television and film,

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Speaker 3: to go big broad general audience when your approach to

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Speaker 3: try to create awareness and also costs a lot of money,

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Speaker 3: and you're going a mile wide and an inch deep

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Speaker 3: versus going a mile deep and an inch wide. So

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Speaker 3: I thinks are and so unapologetically in a way that

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Speaker 3: doesn't sacrifice the quality of the works, doesn't say anything

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Speaker 3: about the quality of work, but recognizes that as consumers.

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Speaker 3: I'm raising my hand and saying, I like, I don't know,

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Speaker 3: I'll pick up something because I'm streamed. Probably I like

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Speaker 3: Nordic procedurals. It's crazy and strange, but go talk to

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Speaker 3: the people who like Nordic procedurals. And then, by the way,

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Speaker 3: after I do that, I'll start telling you about the

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Speaker 3: show that I love, and then maybe I'll influence people

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Speaker 3: who don't have an affinity necessarily for Nordic procedurals, but

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Speaker 3: could inherit said exactly could inherit. You know that that

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Speaker 3: love for our engagement for these opportunities, for these types

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Speaker 3: of things, right, So like talking to audiences unapologetically is

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Speaker 3: also a big theme for us. It's one of the

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Speaker 3: reasons we invested in mucha Maas. We just made the investment.

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Speaker 3: And so one of the first films is this movie,

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Speaker 3: The Long Game, which.

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Speaker 1: Is getting got a very strong review from Variety.

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Speaker 2: Ready to see, completely coincidental from our.

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Speaker 3: Conversations, great little movie. I think that we could have

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Speaker 3: gone deeper in our specific audience, right, and we weren't

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Speaker 3: necessarily control of that, but you know, we look forward

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Speaker 3: to doing that on the next project. But that's I

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Speaker 3: think the kind of thing you have, great movie. It

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Speaker 3: resonates with the poor audience. Just go tell them. You

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Speaker 3: may catch everybody else on top of it, but if

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Speaker 3: you go tell them that, that's what they should be

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Speaker 3: seeing and looking at and not be afraid to do

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Speaker 3: that right Like I think the old model of trying

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Speaker 3: to be everything to all people, it dilutes the It

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Speaker 3: dilutes the audience experience, and also you potentially, I mean

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Speaker 3: it's great now that content creators can get this specific

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Speaker 3: so you get this really great you know, engaged authentic storytelling.

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Speaker 3: We have to make sure that the way that we

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Speaker 3: get to audience matches and mirrors the way the content is.

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Speaker 3: The vision for the content is.

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Speaker 1: That, of course, YouTube is a you know, a fairly

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Speaker 1: democrat platform.

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Speaker 2: You can get up there and you know there is

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Speaker 2: a there, there is a there is a mechanism for

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Speaker 2: getting paid, which is definitely better. There is some that

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Speaker 2: still don't, but it is your model is success in

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Speaker 2: your model still accessing what we would consider the more

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Speaker 2: mainstream lanes of NBC, ABC, who lose you know, studios,

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Speaker 2: if it's movies that can distribute around the world, is there.

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Speaker 3: I think it's all of it. I think it's really

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Speaker 3: embracing the fact that finding and seeing how and when

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Speaker 3: people show up is I think really important. One of

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Speaker 3: the things on the theatrical side is that obviously so

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Speaker 3: many of the later stage windows are still keyed off

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Speaker 3: of what happens doing a theatrical window, and so that's

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Speaker 3: still sort of a legacy, you know, like scaffolding, if

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Speaker 3: you will, in the businesses. So there's some of that

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Speaker 3: that you can never kind of really ignore. But sorting

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Speaker 3: your way through how do you get to audience most

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Speaker 3: efficiently in democratized formats is a big piece of everything

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Speaker 3: that we look at. Any kind of investment opportunity they're

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Speaker 3: looking at is really around Okay, well, what do we

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Speaker 3: think the path the audience is right if we found

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Speaker 3: people who tell great stories, have great businesses and great infrastructures. Okay,

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Speaker 3: But the key thing, because that's how we get our

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Speaker 3: money back, candidly, is like, how do we get to

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Speaker 3: audience and how do we know where those are? And

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Speaker 3: how do we track and use data to help us

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Speaker 3: to manage and monitor that and optimize that for the outcome?

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Speaker 2: No problem just finding great content. Let me ask you

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Speaker 2: step back a bit, what was it about mucho maas

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Speaker 2: that said? I want to said to you, I want

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Speaker 2: to be in business with these guys. There's a lot

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Speaker 2: of different people putting out very creative things, but there

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Speaker 2: must have been something that sparked.

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Speaker 3: You, so absolutely so much of Moss is our second

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Speaker 3: investment in the film Intellivision Space. Our first is Macromedia

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Speaker 3: with Charles King and the team right and Muchams is

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Speaker 3: our second. I think listen identifying partners that I'm in

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Speaker 3: the good human business. So the first my first actually

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Speaker 3: test is is it a good human? Can I work

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Speaker 3: with them? Do they have good values? But the second is,

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Speaker 3: particularly as we're watching this moment, can we think about

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Speaker 3: how to identify really great, high quality outcomes? With Roi

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Speaker 3: in mind and Javier Chotboss and the team was really

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Speaker 3: focused on doing that, and we sort of liked that.

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Speaker 3: We sort of really wanted to lean into that model

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Speaker 3: of identifying highly engaged, high quality content but done at

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Speaker 3: the right price, or done that at the price that

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Speaker 3: we think was really interesting. So that's one of the

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Speaker 3: reasons why we spent more time with that team. And

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Speaker 3: we've got a lot of other things in the pipeline that,

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Speaker 3: you know, we think are very similarly suited high quality delivery.

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Speaker 3: You know, people who have done really great work over

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Speaker 3: the years, but kindilly haven't had a partner to create

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Speaker 3: the type of independence that they needed to be able

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Speaker 3: to build projects efficiently without worry and take them to

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Speaker 3: take them to an audience. And so that's what was

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Speaker 3: really exciting about Avier and the team. Group of people

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Speaker 3: focused on a set of you know, a parameter set

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Speaker 3: that they could deliver against a track record of doing

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Speaker 3: projects at a cost, great references from the marketplace. So

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Speaker 3: that was what was really attractive to us.

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Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more from

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Speaker 1: harbor View Equity CEO charissee Clerk Suarez. And we're back

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Speaker 1: with more from harbor View Equity CEO charissee Clerk Suarez.

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Speaker 1: Let me set back again and ask you about harbor

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Speaker 1: View Equity. Do you see yourself as mostly an investment

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Speaker 1: firm or do you function as a holding company for

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Speaker 1: some of your investments.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, we see ourselves as an investment firm first

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Speaker 3: and foremost. But I will tell you like in comparison

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Speaker 3: to let's call them and many of these firms are

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Speaker 3: partners of ours. So I say this with great care

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Speaker 3: and respect. We are not all things to all people.

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Speaker 3: We are specifically focused on our niche of sports, media

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Speaker 3: and entertainment. We're building a firm with investment products around

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Speaker 3: delivering to our investors expertise around those segments of the industries,

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Speaker 3: creating a value proposition on how we create value in

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Speaker 3: the investments that we've made, whether they're assets like just

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Speaker 3: music assets, or whether they're value to the operating companies

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Speaker 3: that we invest in. That's really sort of our focus.

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Speaker 3: When we talk to entrepreneurs and operators. You know, what's

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Speaker 3: really interesting for them about us is that we actually

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Speaker 3: do feel more strategic. So we sort of sit and

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Speaker 3: we like sitting in this middle zone of being great

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Speaker 3: translators for the creative ecosystem, allowing them to feel like

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Speaker 3: they have a partner that understands creative businesses, the creative process,

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Speaker 3: respects the work that they're doing, but translates the investment

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Speaker 3: process to them. And then similarly, we're like the translation

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Speaker 3: leaders for investors. We get the access to this marketplace,

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Speaker 3: we demonstrated a track record of delivering returns, and we

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Speaker 3: basically can be good translators to them about the space too.

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Speaker 3: But we are we function and we've had many operators

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Speaker 3: and many creators tell us that it feels more like

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Speaker 3: a strategic relationship than it does just a purely financial

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Speaker 3: relationship and that's intentional on our part because of the

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Speaker 3: opportunity that we see in this lane to be a

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Speaker 3: scaled investor in this space. There just aren't that many

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Speaker 3: investors who've chosen this lane at scale as a place

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Speaker 3: that is not one that is, you know, on their

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Speaker 3: bucket list as a tourist spot or tourification right, we

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Speaker 3: are residents of this business and we want to be here,

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Speaker 3: you know, for the long term, and and so we

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Speaker 3: take up space, we get points of view, our team

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Speaker 3: or a deep industry experts around this stuff and continue

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Speaker 3: to develop and scale or acumen around having a point

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Speaker 3: of view around this business, this business opportunity set. So

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Speaker 3: we're decidedly an investment firm around the sports being entertainment practice,

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Speaker 3: but we are very focused on feeling and being strategic

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Speaker 3: to our partners, whether they're musicians, whether they're artists, whether

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Speaker 3: they're you know, producers, filmmakers, directors, whether they're CEOs or

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Speaker 3: operating companies.

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Speaker 1: Charles King is an alumnus of this podcast. He came

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Speaker 1: out right around the time that Judas and the Black

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Speaker 1: Messiah came out from a good conversation. But to be

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Speaker 1: somebody that can instigate from the greed. You know, from

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Speaker 1: the planting that seed, that money is still you know,

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Speaker 1: still even in the way that the businesses for twenty years,

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Speaker 1: nobody has spent their own money. But Charles is somebody

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Speaker 1: you know who came into the business obviously and realized

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Speaker 1: the need. But from your perspective, what is you know,

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Speaker 1: economics one on one tells us that a marketplace dominated

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Speaker 1: by a handful of giants is not going to be

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Speaker 1: a vibrant marketplace.

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Speaker 2: What have you found in coming in here?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, what we found is tremendous opportunity.

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Speaker 3: Our pipeline is robust. We have me and I'm talking

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Speaker 3: from again, you know, award winning you know, in every category,

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Speaker 3: high quality, great human beings. We have a really robust

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Speaker 3: opportunity set. I think what people are craving for, and

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Speaker 3: this moment I think exacerbates it is a way to

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Speaker 3: create long standing value for themselves, for their teams, for

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Speaker 3: their legacy. And the business over the last fifteen years

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Speaker 3: really changed into you know, effectively people being work for hire,

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Speaker 3: which was very lucrative.

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Speaker 1: From an upfront business, from a back end business to

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Speaker 1: an upfront business. And people are recognizing the limits of

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Speaker 1: that even.

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Speaker 2: Though those big checks up front at the start.

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Speaker 3: Yes, so so one, I think that moment creates so

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Speaker 3: this moment creates a lot of opportunity, and the recognition

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Speaker 3: of this moment changing creates a ton of opportunity. But

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Speaker 3: then two, I believe that there My ministry has never

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Speaker 3: been in front of the camera. You know, I was

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Speaker 3: a child actor. I like, you know, I was in

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Speaker 3: some movie as an extra with all my friend from

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Speaker 3: high school. I played lassical piano like I was on

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Speaker 3: the dance scene. But it was never gonna be my ministry.

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Speaker 3: My ministry was always going to be in investing in

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Speaker 3: transactional work. And so it felt really important to me

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Speaker 3: to bring that lens to this space because also, again Barnun,

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Speaker 3: there really is not that many people that have dedicated

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Speaker 3: efforts everybody, you know, obviously with the bidding wars, in

436
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 3: the most recent saga around all Things paramount, there are

437
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 3: multiple people who are pitting for that, But there isn't,

438
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 3: you know, sort of a lot of scaled institutional dollars

439
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 3: that are really thinking about this day and day out

440
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 3: with an intention and a focus solely focused on this space.

441
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 3: And so when we see these big, major media companies

442
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,120
Speaker 3: which for a long time, for lack of a better word,

443
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 3: have been content investors. That's really what they I mean,

444
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 3: they also like, you know, develop things and et cetera,

445
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 3: but they've been content investors. It's too few hands to

446
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 3: actually really create the right incentive structure, I think, and

447
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 3: create and partner with creators to create long term alignment.

448
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 3: And I do think also in this moment, which will

449
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 3: be really interesting, is that a lot of those companies

450
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 3: now trying to figure out how to move from the

451
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 3: industrial revolution into you know, into motorized vehicles, are going

452
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 3: to be looking for our partners to come together in

453
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 3: more innovative structures. So I think that's what's really exciting.

454
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 3: I'm excited to basically continue to have capital in this

455
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 3: moment for the next twelve to eighteen to twenty four months.

456
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 3: Around this space, I think there's gonna be a lot

457
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,120
Speaker 3: of really great opportunities in ways that we think can

458
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 3: empower the creative community, maybe helped to balance the balance

459
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 3: the scales a little bit for creators too, while also

460
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 3: creating alignment and then ultimately hopefully creating you know, real

461
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 3: great returns for our stakeholders and maybe also shifting the

462
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 3: landscape of then what we see.

463
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 2: Was it your familiarity with the space? What was it

464
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 2: that led you to music? Was kind of the origins

465
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 2: for your company? You know?

466
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 3: Some of it is I kind of look back on

467
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,719
Speaker 3: the journey that we've been here and people are like, oh,

468
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 3: my goodness, your company's done so much in three years,

469
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 3: and I'm like, it's the classic line of overnight success

470
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 3: twenty years in the making. You know. I spent a

471
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 3: lot of time. I wrote a business school essay to

472
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 3: go to be accepted to EAHBS about how I wanted

473
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 3: to invest in content over the long haul. I had

474
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 3: no idea how I was going to get there, that

475
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 3: I was going to start like taking away. And again

476
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 3: after business school, I went and worked at CIT right

477
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 3: around the corner from here, and focused mostly on film,

478
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:15,239
Speaker 3: mostly film. Television Really wasn't they weren't television slates in

479
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 3: the early two thousands.

480
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: Definitely still the not fair haired child, Yes, industry for sure.

481
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 3: Yeah that's changed. Yes, it's changed, yes, but mostly film

482
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 3: financing and film structured investing, et cetera. And then when

483
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 3: I got back to Morgan Stanley in two thousand and nine,

484
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 3: after the global financial crisis, I helped to lead our credit,

485
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 3: our corporate credit business across all industries, which was really

486
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 3: fascinating because it really continued to expand my ability to

487
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 3: really think around how to deploy capital invest capital across

488
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 3: a variety of different circumstances. But about in two thousand

489
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 3: and sixteen, a colleague of mine at Morgan Stanley came

490
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 3: to me and said, in our wealth management business, we've

491
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: started this entertainment and media focus and sports focused wealth

492
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 3: management practice, and we have all of these clients that

493
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 3: are looking for working capital or looking to monetize working

494
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 3: capital to create new projects. They're looking for capital to

495
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 3: capitalize their operating companies. They're looking for to monetize libraries

496
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 3: of content that they had, whether it's film or music

497
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 3: or otherwise, and they're like, how should we do something.

498
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 3: I was like, great, I know, good, I think, I know,

499
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 3: I know, I know. There isn't institutionally skilled capital focused

500
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 3: on this marketplace. We should go figure that out. So

501
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 3: long story Shore we went to go figure this out

502
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 3: and it ended up with first It also intersected really

503
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 3: nicely in twenty sixteen with the reemergence of the music

504
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 3: business a little bit go again. They went through their

505
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 3: napster a moment which is again the chaos I think

506
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 3: that we're seeing practically a decade later in the film

507
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 3: and television business. But you started to see this emergence,

508
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 3: this light a day around digital consumption and helping to

509
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 3: resurrect the music business, make it visible and give real investibility.

510
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: And taking away borders. Yes, that allows a pistel pluma

511
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: and an estrap on our monitor.

512
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 3: Correct removing the borders, removing a centralized purveyor of culture

513
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,959
Speaker 3: from the equation so that now audience can just connect

514
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 3: with what they think is interesting. And so you saw

515
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 3: that starting to emerge. And as you know, as we

516
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 3: were sort of trying to figure out the right way

517
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 3: to take a product to market, and we heard investors

518
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 3: again having this like, ah, I'm going to lose all

519
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 3: my money. We lose all my money and lose my right.

520
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 3: The nice thing that we saw emerging from the from

521
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: this revolution in the music space was visibility of cash flow.

522
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 3: And that visibility of cash flow was easier to understand

523
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 3: for investors. It was visible, it was underwritable, and so

524
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 3: it made it easier to start with music. It caused

525
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 3: me to start my first company, which was Temple Music.

526
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 3: I ultimately resigned from that platform in the end of

527
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 3: December of twenty twenty because if I'm candid, I just

528
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 3: didn't own enough of it, and so I decided to

529
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 3: erect harbor View and I saw an opportunity to do

530
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 3: a little bit more broader. But Temple was the result

531
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 3: of the work. I started out doing it more than Stanley.

532
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 3: So we started with music because of just where the

533
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 3: marketplace was. After I did Temple, launch harbor View and

534
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 3: then leaned into my most recent track record started with

535
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 3: a music launch. Continue to deploy capital and music every day.

536
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 3: We just closed a deal last week, probably closed you know,

537
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 3: a bunch of deals a month. But saw this as

538
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,959
Speaker 3: a really a vessel to really start thinking through and

539
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 3: talking to the marketplace.

540
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 2: What was it like for you when you went on

541
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 2: on your own and it wrote that first check for

542
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 2: your first deal.

543
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, it's still satisfying.

544
00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 2: It Was it scary? Was it invigorating?

545
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 3: Was it all of that all at once? It's it's

546
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 3: scary and invigorating and all of it at once. I mean,

547
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 3: I think the scary part is, you know, there's just

548
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 3: not a lot of women in private equity, and particularly

549
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 3: black women in private equity. So pinch me. This is

550
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 3: what I'm doing.

551
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 2: This is what I do every day. Thanks for listening.

552
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts

553
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: and Amazon Music. We love to hear from listeners. Please

554
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: go to Variety dot com and sign up for the

555
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune

556
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: in next week for another episode of Strictly Business