The AvA Connection

In Partnership With

👋 This is Warner Bailey, creator of AvA. Connect with me here.

They say never meet your heroes, but I last night I met Colin & Samir and they are somehow even nicer in person. Canon held an event honoring young filmmakers and I’ve never been more optimistic about the future of the industry.

🎙️ When I was in the Music department at WME I would always hear about this Motion Picture & TV agent named “Gabrielle Bird-Vogel.” Why? 1) It’s a cool name 2) She was widely known as someone who will one day take over the industry.

So in a full circle moment, she finally agreed to sit down and do an interview (jk it just took me 2 years to make the ask and she said yes immediately). After getting a casual MBA at Harvard, she’s now Karlie Kloss’ business partner and indeed is taking over the industry.

She’s an incredible leader and one of the most requested interviews to date.

💼 170+ early career Entertainment jobs at the bottom of this email.

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1) Warner Bros. Discovery has officially rejects Paramounts offer

Netflix it is!

2) The Weeknd just closed a $1 billion deal for his catalog with Lyric Capitol Group.

He gets to keep full creative control. The agreement includes publishing rights and master recordings that The Weeknd released up until 2025, with anything released after currently excluded.

3) Netflix continues its push into video podcasts

iHeartMedia struck a deal for 15 of their video podcasts to be available on the streaming platform including ‘My Favorite Murder’ & ‘The Breakfast Club’

4) A quick pulse check on the TV/Film Industry Insights

The good: 10% more features YoY were filmed in L.A. during Q3.

The bad: California’s production spend fell 10% YoY to $10 Billion

The also bad: Total global production spend for 2025 dropped 7% to $41.6 billion.

The good: CA announced 28 projects receiving CA tax credits including Snoop Dogg who is going going back back to Cali (sorry). He just locked in $17M in CA tax credits to shoot a new feature.

The very good: there is a TON of opportunity and spend in the creator economy that isn’t included in this.

5) Instagram is going vertical on horizontal

They launched an app on Amazon Fire TV, further blurring the line for where short-form content will be viewed. And of course to compete with YouTube across another vertical.

6) Louis Vuitton names Future as their latest Ambassador and ‘Friend of the House.’

Pharrell Williams, the Men’s Creative Director for the brand, was the one to make the appointment.

Every week we drop our favorite podcast & book recs.

Today we have Kate Winslet who has been in everything from Titanic to Mare of Easttown on Happy Place. The two discuss surviving Hollywood and her experience directing for the very first time.

This is a great watch or listen for anyone who wants to go behind the scenes with someone who has worked across iconic titles and also delve into her personal growth as an actress, mom, and team member.

Another resource-packed conversation booked by the team at Central Talent Booking.

Our new job board features 170+ early career roles in Entertainment, including:

💼 Story Producer - Colin and Samir - Apply Here

💼 Assistant, Non-Scripted TV - WME - Apply Here

💼 Executive Assistant - Epic Games - Apply Here

💼 Growth Marketing Manager - Spotify - Apply Here

💼 Executive Assistant - Genius - Apply Here

💼 Podcast Marketing Specialist - Pandora - Apply Here

💼 Title Marketing Coordinator - Paramount Skydance - Apply Here

💼 Admin Assistant (Digital Marketing) - Universal Music Group - Apply Here

💼 Content Marketing & Partnerships Senior Specialist - SiriusXM - Apply Here

💼 Associate Project Manager (Planning) - Walt Disney Studios- Apply Here

💼 Production Manager - Roku - Apply Here

💼 MediaLink Assistant - UTA - Apply Here

💼 Partner Operations Coordinator - Night - Apply Here

💼 Senior Creative Strategist - Wasserman - Apply Here

💼 Executive Assistant (Sony Music Vision) - Sony Music - Apply Here

💼 Product Manager (Podcast) - Spotify - Apply Here

🎒 Film Editing & Marketing Intern - MUBI - Apply Here

AvA: Ok before we jump in, break down your role like you're trying to explain it to someone outside the industry?

Bird-Vogel: I am Karlie Kloss’s business partner and lead across her portfolio - Bedford Media (i-D, LIFE), Impact (Kode With Klossy, Gateway Coalition), Brand Partnerships, and New Ventures/Investments (NY Liberty, for example). I often explain it as “producer-meets-COO.” I work with Karlie to shape portfolio level strategy, pick the right bets, line up the right people and teams and make sure the economics work.

AvA: What was your first job in Entertainment, and looking back, what was the process like trying to get your foot in the door in a wildly competitive industry?

Bird-Vogel: During my junior summer in college, I worked two internships in LA: the WME mailroom and Mandeville Films. These came via calls with Yale alums, in person meetings with anyone who’d take one in NY / LA and some good will. Landing at the old animation building on the Disney lot and WME HQ, I remember thinking: who was I to recommend creative? So I read everything, watched everything and consumed at volume. I returned to the mailroom at WME after graduation because the agency was the fastest way to build range and exposure to material, deals, relationships (where Warner and I met), and credibility. At WME, I knew taste had to be earned. Not just what I liked, but backing it up: why it works, how to pitch it, and learning where it can live in the market. That era taught me two key things: relationship capital compounds and pattern recognition builds through curiosity.

AvA: You were at WME for 6 years, moving up from Mailroom to a Talent Agent in Motion Picture & TV. What was your framework for knowing it was time to pivot vs. wanting to to dig in and continue climbing the ladder there?

Bird-Vogel: We started right when WME acquired IMG, so my formative years were spent in an Endeavor ecosystem that was expanding in every direction-Frieze, UFC, live events, fashion, sports - and talent is the key center of that flywheel. I was reading ten scripts a week, tracking material, going to emerging shows and screenings, and building relationships in all departments and across the portfolio companies. I loved being in the talent department: working to create opportunities for women, whether they were acting, directing, producing or trying to stretch and build into a new category. That pace, plus the culture of “if you create opportunity and deliver, you can really do anything,” made it easy to keep digging in.

I had incredible internal champions (s/o Michelle Bohan), but I also trained myself to pitch value-add ideas to people (and clients) I didn’t technically work for to keep expanding my surface area and entrepreneurial tendencies. A few months into COVID, when the industry was shifting faster than my own toolkit, I realized I needed a new set of skills to keep advocating for great storytellers and the media industry at the next level - so I started at HBS in fall 2021. My framework: stay as long as the ecosystem is stretching you and your impact is compounding; pivot when you need a different platform to continue growing.

AvA: What’s been the most surprising lesson in going from advising talent to operating as one yourself, running a business with its own brand voice and ecosystem?

Bird-Vogel: Operating Karlie’s portfolio demands intentionality around a north star: create access and opportunity for the next generation and invest where culture is heading. That means translating a platform-level mission into a coherent brand voice and a plan that ladders into concrete priorities with real resources behind them. It also means being disciplined about what we say yes to and building capacity when an opportunity is truly on-strategy. Every decision must align with her brand voice — supermodel, entrepreneur, philanthropist — bridging old and new guard across media, values-aligned investing, and gender-equity advocacy. The surprise is how fewer, sharper yeses don’t limit the work; they make the ecosystem more powerful.

AvA: You’ve seen both the old guard and the new wave. How do you think the next generation, especially women, in entertainment and entrepreneurship will redefine leadership?

Bird-Vogel: I think our generation, especially women, is redefining leadership as something you build through the organization, not just at the top. At Kode With Klossy, a focus of our work is on the “Broken Rung” phenomenon - that first step up to manager where women often fall out of the pipeline. We aim to empower great women to keep advancing at every level, not just breaking the glass ceiling. When we launched the Women of Endeavor ERG, we were intentional about building intergenerational coalitions. Our board brought together senior leaders and young agents so ideas could rise from the bottom up and gain support from the top down. I think leadership now maps to building a culturally intelligent organization throughout the pipeline: the opportunity now is to apply the right incentives and real rigor to developing talent so excellent people grow, stay, and shape the industry.

AvA: What is the biggest opportunity in your area of business right now that makes you optimistic for the future of the Industry?

Bird-Vogel: The biggest opportunity is rebuilding trust at scale and turning “audiences” back into communities. The pendulum swung hard toward the individual influencer, and you can feel the craving for credible brands and people with taste, standards, and a real point of view. AI and distribution are commodities and taste is the moat. The job now is to use tech to deepen provenance and bring the audience into the process, co-creation and transparency can build belief.

That’s where I’m optimistic: when you layer institutional credibility (like i-D) or brands with momentum (NY Liberty/WNBA) with true community: experiential moments, print as collectibles, contributor pathways and community driven platforms. These are all ways you move people from being passive followers to having real stakes in the story.

AvA: Looking back on your career, what’s one defining moment, and why has it stuck with you?

Bird-Vogel: In my first year at HBS, I spent months trying to curate the right summer internship. I was debating everything from tech startups to fashion to media... to build exposure outside of core entertainment. I had the amazing opportunity to work as right hand to David Grutman. In a finite window (summer), I had to earn trust fast - by plugging into his dynamic ecosystem and watching an entrepreneur who plays the long game, where relationships are the most valuable currency. That summer reset my operating system: do the hard search for the experience that stretches you, then show up to prove your value on day one to this person and his organization. Treat every day like game day and win the moment, no matter how long.

AvA: If you could leave a voicemail for your younger self still hustling in the WME mailroom, what would you say?

Bird-Vogel: I know you are nervous, confused and pretending not to be. But go to the assistant parties and premieres… you’ll be surprised by how many of your future best friends and colleagues will be there. Read everything your friends slip you and speak up for the especially edgy scripts and the artists you believe in. The word interesting doesn’t mean anything, so remove it from your vocabulary. Do your research before asking (smart) questions to your bosses. Information is currency but never share a grid. Your relationships are foundational and are legitimizing even a decade later, so treat them well.