THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 85 NOVEMBER 6, 2019
Clemency won Sundance. Plus,
Satiani, who was named partner in
October, recently signed Atlanta
star Zazie Beetz and her partner,
writer-actor David Rysdahl. She
hopes to continue to push for
representation for people of color,
particularly women of color in the
industry. Says Satiani, who got mar-
ried this year: “If I’m not doing that,
then I’m not leaving a legacy.”
TALENT I’M DYING TO WORK WITH
“Ruben Ostlund, Diane Keaton,
Taika Waititi.”ANDREA WEINTRAUB / 32
Talent Agent, CAA
Weintraub grew up around the
industry (her dad was the COO at
William Morris) but as a competitive
swimmer, she was more interested
in making it into the Olympics than
show business. The L.A. native
swam for Indiana University for
about two years — until she thenmade a deal with her coach to stop
competing but still retain all the
perks of being a student athlete
by becoming the team’s manager.
Her dad, upon hearing the story,
told her she should be an agent. So
Weintraub, who lives in Westwood,
got a job at CAA. In the five years
since, she’s become a go-to for
young talent at the agency, building
up a roster that includes Riverdale’s
Camila Mendes, Sabrina’s Kiernan
Shipka, You’s Penn Badgley and
Stranger Things’ Maya Hawke — not
to mention Emmy winners Darren
Criss and Alexis Bledel.
BIGGEST CHANGE I’VE WITNESSED IN
HOLLYWOOD “Gender parity. Finally.”KEN BASIN // 35
Executive VP & Head of Business
Affairs, Paramount TV
“I decided to be a lawyer when I
realized I didn’t want to be a doc-
tor and didn’t want to engage in a
very difficult negotiation with my
Russian-Jewish immigrant par-
ents,” says Basin. He did start USC
pre-med, but changed his major to
international relations before going
on to Harvard Law. Prior to becoming
a studio negotiator, Basin handled
litigation and transactional work at
Greenberg Glusker and was Amazon
Studios’ second-ever business affairs
employee. Basin (who has appeared
on both Jeopardy! and Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire) joined Paramount
in 2017 and was promoted to his
current post in April. “It’s the hardest
job I’ve ever had, the most stress-
ful job I’ve ever had and by far the
most fun job I’ve ever had,” says
Basin, who spends most of his time
problem solving when “things hit the
rocks.” He also still directly oversees
Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and Apple
TV+’s Shantaram (“the biggest, most
complex show I’ve ever seen”).
THE PERSON I’D SWITCH JOBS WITH FOR
A DAY Ira GlassANNIE LEE / 35
Partner, Gang Tyre Ramer & Brown
Firm clients David Leitch and Chad
Stahelski, the co-directors behind
2014’s John Wick, have created
plenty of work for Lee, with Stahelski
helming the hit sequels and Leitch
directing Deadpool 2 and HobbsJ
effrey and I were very deliberate about
building a company that was a reflection
of who we thought our audience would
be. Our target audience at Quibi is 25 to
35 years old, so we said, “What better way to
get content for that target demo than hiring
our target demo?” Over 70 percent of our staff
is under the age of 40 and more than 30 per-
cent is under the age of 30. We had the same
demographic at eBay back in the day, so I’ve
experienced this before.
What I’ve learned is that this age group
sees the possibilities. They’re not jaded. They
haven’t lived through 20 or 30 years in a corpo-
rate environment where they’ve been told no.
So they imagine that they can do things that
sometimes it’s been hard to get done at big,
older companies. I love their enthusiasm and
can-do attitude. They work very hard and they
want to do great things, and I think they love
that they get more responsibility at a startup
like Quibi.
Since we have only 200 people, everyone is
probably in the most senior job they’ve ever
been in, and that’s exhilarating for them.
They’re learning things every single day,
they’re being stretched and pulled. And our
job is to coach and mentor because we’ve seen
York, with her software engineer
husband and their 13 chickens.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, she
piles a group of agents into her
“mom SUV” and drives to the city
to find the next generation of
comedy stars. “I sign people out of
basement comedy clubs, and my
favorite thing to do is introduce
them to the world,” says Roussos,
who moved from CAA to UTA in
- The Tampa, Florida, native
signed Michael Che, Bowen Yang
and Aidy Bryant before they landed
on SNL. In fact, she met Bryant (and
client Vanessa Bayer) when she
briefly dropped out of Tisch and
took a detour to perform at Second
City in Chicago. Other powerhouse
clients include Awkwafina, Phoebe
Robinson, Greta Lee, Michelle Wolf,
Los Espookys’ Ana Fabrega and
High Maintenance creators Ben
Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld.
CHILDHOOD TV SERIES I WANT ON
STREAMING “All That, original cast.”
PRIYA SATIANI // 34
Manager, Grandview
Born in Akron, Ohio, and raised in
Orange County, Satiani was 24 when
she started her own management
company. “At that time, 99 percent
of representatives were white men,”
says the Chapman University grad
whose parents are of Indian and
Pakistani descent. “So, many of the
people I started representing were
people who had like-minded experi-
ences with me.” Since 2007, she’s
been building up a diverse client
list that she brought with her when
she joined Grandview in 2015. Her
clients include rising stars like Last
Black Man in San Francisco break-
out Jonathan Majors, Riverdale’s
Hayley Law and After’s Inanna
Sarkis; comedy actors like New
Girl’s Lamorne Morris and Meet the
Patels’ Ravi Patel; and filmmaker
Chinonye Chukwu, whose featurealmost everything — we can see and avert the
disaster. There’s no playbook for us either.
Startups are not for everybody, so we have to
look for someone who embraces risk and has
the ability to deal with ambiguity. We’ve got a
really strong, smart group of people and I think
it keeps me current in a way that I might not
have been if I had not been surrounded by these
employees. There’s a whole social networking
language; sometimes I have to ask, “What are
you talking about?” Like with the terms “stans”
(big fans) and “fam” (work friends). But I will
say this about the next generation: Don’t under-
estimate them. They will do amazing things.Veteran tech executive Meg Whitman, 63, and her Quibi co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, 68,
may be mentoring their young staff, but they’ve been taught a thing or two as well As told to Natalie JarveyWhat I’ve Learned From
My Millennial and Gen Z Staff
Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s video platform
Quibi is slated to launch April 6.