Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Founder Jeremy Zimmer steps back as CEO at age 66, prompting a look at cross-town rivals run by fellow boomers.
By Alex Weprin
Media & Business Writer
On March 17, Jeremy Zimmer, the co-founder and CEO of UTA, informed staff at the agency that he would be stepping aside.
In a choreographed succession maneuver, 66-year-old Zimmer named the 56-year-old David Kramer (who he had elevated to president of UTA just a couple years prior) his successor at the agency. Zimmer told staff that he would stick around for the year as executive chairman, and remain on the UTA board.
“Let’s be honest, the chances that I’m going to start an aluminum company in Alaska or a cement company in Cleveland are pretty slim. So this is not goodbye,” he quipped in his note to staff.
blogherads.adq.push(function () {
blogherads
.defineSlot( 'medrec', 'gpt-article-mid-article-uid0' )
.setTargeting( 'pos', ["mid-article1","mid-articleX","mid","mid-article"] )
.setTargeting( 'viewable', 'yes' ) .setSubAdUnitPath("ros/mid-article") .addSize([[300,250],[2,2],[300,251],[620,350],[2,4],[4,2],[320,480],[620,366]]) .setClsOptimization("minsize") ; });
Related Stories
Zimmer’s exit and Kramer’s ascension, however, comes at an intriguing moment for talent agencies, which are seeking to adapt to the new world of media just as much as Hollywood writ large.
UTA’s changing of the guard also sent tongues wagging across the industry. After all, when the current iterations of the agencies were founded in the 1990s, they were led by young guns (Kim Masters branded the CAA crew the “Young Turks”), 20 and 30-something agents who had their finger on the pulse of popular culture.
Thirty years later and those young guns are largely still in charge.
CAA’s CEO Bryan Lourd is just a couple years younger than Zimmer, and has been at the top of the agency since 1995. Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel is just a year younger than Lourd, and has also led his company since 1995.
To be certain, WME promoted Richard Weitz and Christian Muirhead to co-chairman of WME in 2022, the same year that Kramer was promoted, while Endeavor COO Mark Shapiro has been playing an active role in the running the businesses.
CAA, meanwhile, elevated a number of partners to the managing director level last year, giving them more autonomy to work alongside Lourd, co-chairmen Kevin Huvane and Richard Lovett, and president Jim Burtson.
But with the entertainment industry figuring out a future that is more multifaceted than its present, with sports, creator-driven content and music all melding with the traditional bulwarks of film and TV, the major agencies appear poised to try and adapt accordingly.
During his nearly 13-year run as CEO, Zimmer led UTA on an M&A onslaught, with some 19 strategic acquisitions that brought UTA into the sports, music and creator economy businesses, while raising cash from the private equity firm EQT to help turbocharge that growth in the pursuit of “what’s next.”
Now Kramer is telling staff that he is likely to continue that push. “Together, we will make sure that we foster real collaboration across our platform so that we can leverage our ability to see what’s next in culture to unlock greater opportunity for both our clients and the company as a whole,” he wrote March 17.
UTA, like one of its chief competitors, Endeavor-owned WME, has been bulking up over the last decade. Endeavor, however, now finds itself slimming down, shedding itself of businesses that are not connected to the talent agency business.
The company is expected to close on its take-private with Silver Lake in the coming weeks, with WME the grand prize. Along the way it has been selling many of the assets that it had acquired, including IMG, Professional Bull Riders, On Location and its sports data division. Other assets like a pair of pro tennis tournaments and Frieze are up for sale (it is keeping its majority stake in TKO Group, which will take on PBR, On Location and IMG).
While UTA focused on acquiring mostly businesses that were in the talent agency space (or talent-adjacent, like the consulting firm MediaLink or a creator economy data firm), Endeavor sought to bulk up with prestigious owned properties, particularly with a sports focus.
UTA, of course, also invested in sports, particularly via its partnership with Rich Paul’s Klutch Sports Group
And CAA, now a centerpiece of Artémis, the investment firm controlled by François-Henri Pinault, has been acquisitive itself, most notably with its $750 million mega-deal for ICM in 2022. It bought the executive search firm Hanold Associates last year, in a further push into talent-adjacent businesses.
For a business that was built on being at the speartip of culture, Hollywood now finds itself increasingly chasing the culture, ceding ground to platforms like TikTok and Instagram that are forging microstars every day. Agencies have bet that they can take those microstars and turn them into major stars, just as they are taking pro athletes and making them into mega-brands.
But it is likely that it will fall to the next generation of agency talent to figure out that path forward, even though the moguls aren’t ceding the stage just yet.
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
