Variety returns in-person for its annual Entertainment & Technology Summit, presented by City National Bank. This one-day event will explore advancing technology’s impact on TV, film, gaming, music, digital media and consumer brands.
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00:00I'm gonna just ask each of you to briefly introduce yourself and what you do at your company.
00:08So, Shaheen, take it away.
00:10How are you doing, guys? I'm Shaheen Mohammed Kani.
00:12I'm the head of engineering at UTA, United Talent Agency.
00:16I've been with UTA for about three years, overseeing a technology group.
00:19Prior to that, I was leading technology at Sony Pictures.
00:23Hi, I'm Erin Ormland.
00:25I'm the general manager of Agilink and Payment Hub with Citi National Bank.
00:29I have a deep passion and expertise in the entertainment payments ecosystem,
00:34so I'm really excited about today's conversation.
00:37I'm David Gorelick, the president and CEO of Global Business Management.
00:43We are a business management firm that's been around since 1960 in Hollywood,
00:48and we handle a lot of writers, directors, actors, and take care of them financially.
00:55And as you'll see from this conversation, we're represented here by sort of crucial pieces of the puzzle
01:03when it comes to the agency, the bank, the business manager.
01:08When it comes to payments, it all comes together.
01:10And Erin, starting with you, in Citi National Bank, you guys have been at the center of this for a long time,
01:17but it's evolved over the years.
01:19So give us sort of a grounding of how we can explore this subject further.
01:26Yeah, thanks, Andy.
01:28Yeah, so that is one of the reasons why I joined Citi National Bank,
01:31because it's an interesting concept to have a bank be your technology partner.
01:37And Citi National Bank has done a fantastic job.
01:39So we have a couple of software companies that we have purchased and that are part of our portfolio.
01:47And so what we want to talk about today is how we're working with our clients in the entertainment industry
01:53to help you find operational efficiencies with integrations through the payments ecosystem end-to-end.
02:00We all know that businesses are changing, particularly our industry right now in entertainment.
02:05There's a lot of consolidation, downsizing, adjustments, and everyone's really looking for ways to do more with less.
02:13And the best way to do that is to leverage your technology.
02:16So my partners up here are going to talk about a couple of the ways that we collectively have done that
02:22in some pretty clever ways and with some incredible feedback from our clients.
02:27Great. Sheen, let's start with you at UTA.
02:32Obviously, the relationship between you and Citi National is a lot more complicated than just, hey, this is where the money is.
02:42This is how you are empowered to pay the clients, the clients that our business manager, David, sometimes represents as well.
02:54So can you maybe give us sort of a sense of the evolution of your relationship with Citi National and how this has developed?
03:02Yes, absolutely. So UTA, we're fairly forward-thinking in technology and how we adopt technology.
03:10We're continuously challenging the status quo and continuously looking for ways to innovate and improve our processes.
03:17At the same time, we work on identifying the right partners in doing so.
03:22And very earlier on in working with Aaron, I realized that CNB is one of those partners who is willing to work with us
03:30and happy to become a partner with us to enhance our financial processes.
03:37We've worked together for about two years now to ultimately demystify the banking process for our clients,
03:44removing the stress they have on the payments they get, providing managers, business managers,
03:50the opportunity to view all the transactions that are happening with the clients, and in turn, reduce our internal processes.
03:59And all that goes down to, without getting into a lot of the details, is on the complete understanding on both ends on what our desires are
04:07and how we can work together to get those done.
04:10Yeah. And what I love about what we've done with you is we listened to your needs, we heard where you guys had challenges,
04:19and we were able to pair you up with one of our offerings to really say, okay, here's how we can automate that, right?
04:25And so being able to automate, and specifically in UTA's case, we are able to bring the payments from studios
04:31that our agents bring in for their clients, right, and bring them automated through end-to-end
04:40so that the actors, the writers, directors can all access that through a digital platform, right?
04:46And so it demystifies, as you said, the payments ecosystem, but it also creates incredible operational efficiency for UTA
04:53to then leverage that talent, the talent internal to UTA, to do more thought-provoking and critical thinking tasks, right?
05:02So it eliminates that manual process and then opens up the transparency for those payments to your clients.
05:09So pre-automation, what were the challenges, the pain points?
05:14Yeah, you know, there was a lot of handoffs between parties and individuals, which, you know, from a technology aspect,
05:22there's a lot of security concerns around that, private information getting leaked, and there's also legal ramifications around that.
05:30But also, I mean, on the latter side, user error, just people making mistakes because there's so many documents being passed around.
05:38In understanding the problems that we had and what our actual business process should be,
05:47we were looking to automate those so we would remove the manual intervention between each step of the way
05:54and ultimately getting closer with our clients and providing them the opportunity to have a window into the financial operations of the company
06:04without the continuous back and forth, whether it's through emails or static documents, PDF documents,
06:10and essentially going completely digital for their experience.
06:14And that's really, you know, has helped us internally as well as for our clients, for sure.
06:20Traceability is a word I hear in terms of you've got to be able, and I assume automation empowers this,
06:29you want to get at a problem, you want to get at a misunderstanding, this is a system that helps.
06:35Yeah, absolutely. Information, data, it's essential, right, to making decisions, right?
06:41So informed decision making, empowered decision making, right?
06:44So being able to get that data quickly into the hands of the clients, right,
06:51allows them to take a look at what's going on, for our financial advisors to be able to say,
06:55okay, we know what's happening with their financial picture, we have that data, we can make decisions, we can take a look at it,
07:00and then eliminating room for error, right, and giving you some integrity in what you're passing on to your clients.
07:07So let's swing it over to you, David. Give your perspective of this process and how things have evolved over the years.
07:14Well, I've been around long enough, so I've been with City National for over 30 years,
07:20and before that we were with Wells Fargo, but I also have about maybe 20% of our business with other banks,
07:30but City National has an entertainment division, they're really tailored to the entertainment industry, which is nice.
07:38They're very large, they're owned by RBC, but still small enough that you can get on the phone and talk to people.
07:43But what I've liked about Exactuals is, God, we would get hundreds of checks into our office every month for residuals for clients,
07:54and sometimes those things wouldn't get cashed for two weeks or a month, now they happen instantaneously.
08:01So the money is in client accounts right away, auto-credited right to their accounts.
08:07We get the backup, and it's all integrated through their Agilink system.
08:12So it's kind of been a game-changer in that checks aren't lost in the mail, clients are getting their money,
08:20they're very happy, and they're getting it very quick.
08:23And Erin, we're starting to mention some brands here, Exactuals and such, lay the land out for us so we know what's what.
08:31Yeah, so let me walk you through this, because we don't want to get too technical here, right?
08:35We want to make sure you guys are still enjoying this conversation with us.
08:38And we could get pretty geeky up here if you don't keep us on track, right?
08:43Yes.
08:44So essentially what we've done is we have, in particular today we're talking about a portfolio of products,
08:50which is Agilink, which is our general ledger and our accounting system, right,
08:54which we offer a complete integration with Citi National Bank, so all of your banking services are on Agilink.
09:02So for our business managers, they have seamless integration, all of their banking data comes into Agilink,
09:07they do all of the bookkeeping, they do all of their reporting,
09:10and they can deliver really powerful services to their clients with a tremendous amount of efficiency,
09:16including bill payment, which is a big part of what you do, tax planning, reporting, and all of that.
09:21And so then with our other platform, payment hub that we're talking about, we have two use cases here that are really cool.
09:29So the residuals, which you all know there's a large volume of residuals, they were paper.
09:37They could not automate that process, and so we were able to partner with the studios and the unions to automate that
09:43and integrate that and turn it into a completely electronic end-to-end process.
09:47And not only does it come from the studio electronically to the union electronically to the end talent via our payment hub portal,
09:56but now it also goes into Agilink so that business manager is getting that payment and that remittance statement,
10:02which is that data that's essential for the client and the business manager to know, tax planning,
10:07for the clients to know what they're getting paid, directly ingested into our Agilink platform so that they can do their bookkeeping.
10:14And then UTA is using the same operating model for their entire payment ecosystem in terms of studio money's coming in,
10:23it's going over to UTA, they're taking their commission and they're passing that data electronically out to their end talent
10:29and their business managers.
10:31So I get super excited about this.
10:34We all are.
10:35Yay!
10:36Because essentially we've taken what was an incredibly cumbersome process with a lot of touch points along the way
10:44and a lot of places for breakdown, right, and for trust to be broken through the process,
10:49and we've completely automated it end-to-end with integrations, with transparency and efficiency that's allowed our partners to grow.
10:57And so I think that's one of the beautiful things that City National does with these platforms in partnering with our clients.
11:03And David, you mentioned, because you have clients that are in the entertainment business, not in the entertainment business,
11:08what is it about the fact that the bank has an entertainment-focused vision,
11:16what is it about the needs of the industry specifically that may be different than other industries?
11:23And if I may two-part that question, the industry right now is going through some tough times, and how does that impact all this?
11:32Yeah, the industry is going through some tough times, but what's nice about City National too is they understand that industry.
11:40Some of these banks do not at all.
11:42It's difficult to get lines of credit, get loans, and City National's been around a long, long time.
11:49Like I said, they understand the industry.
11:52I can get on the phone with Martha Henderson or Steve Shapiro, whoever, and walk through clients' issues and help them in that way.
12:01So it's been integral to our business.
12:05Great.
12:07Gene, back to you.
12:10As you look at this system that you've got in place, there are still innovations coming into this process.
12:18I believe there's a new program.
12:20I think it's called OneSpan, or did I get that right?
12:23Yeah, yeah.
12:24So OneSpan is essentially our digital signature offering.
12:32Again, going back to streamlining, to kind of give everybody how big of a scope this is,
12:38is imagine you have a client that's going on a multi-country, multi-seater tour, and there's so many deals being made.
12:45And these documents are all brokered by the agents and passed on to the managers, and each of these agreements need to be signed.
12:54And a lot of times, they need to be signed within hours.
12:57We can't wait days for these because these are happening in real time.
13:00Everything's got to happen fast, right?
13:01Everything happens to happen now.
13:03It's the difference between a multi-million dollar deal and no deal.
13:07So having a partner who's willing to be very nimble and work fast with us,
13:14and build in the futures that we'd like to have out of a platform,
13:18it gives us such a competitive advantage and creates accuracy, transparency, and adaptability to the market as well.
13:30So with OneSpan, we're now able to just essentially send a complete digital copy of everything to our clients and managers,
13:37have them signed, have copies of them, have a full log of what's going on,
13:42and be able to reference them years from now if we need to.
13:45Yeah, so we didn't want to stop with payments.
13:47We wanted to keep going, right?
13:48So now we're going to do some document support to enable all of the paperwork that goes behind that payment,
13:53which for those of you that are in the weeds with us on the payment ecosystem,
13:56there's a lot of paperwork behind getting somebody paid, right?
13:59A tremendous amount of paperwork.
14:01And so now we're able to get that same efficiency by automating that paperwork.
14:06And eSign's been around for a while, but it's getting the eSign document from party A to B to C, right,
14:12and working that through our ecosystem the same way the money needs to flow.
14:15So they'll find, hopefully speaking for you, a tremendous amount of efficiencies in managing that paperwork.
14:22I wanted to add a lot of the features that we're working with Xactual were not there two years ago, right?
14:28And I've worked in an engineering group at a bank before, and it's extremely difficult for a bank to move very quickly.
14:37Because we want to stay very safe.
14:40Very safe, yeah.
14:42And CMB likes to play with danger, I would say, right?
14:46No, but having a partner that's willing to listen and move so rapidly as the entertainment industry is changing,
14:53it's critical to the success of the business, for sure.
14:56And it's that willingness to listen that I'm curious to hear more about.
14:59I mean, I would imagine the bank is in constant conversations with clients or others to,
15:06I guess you've got to get a sense of what people need.
15:09Yeah, yeah.
15:10And I think, David, you said it really well, which is that City National Bank is the entertainment bank, right?
15:15We've been in this industry for as long as, you know, we've been in this industry for a very long time.
15:20And we know our clients, and we know this industry better than anybody else.
15:23And then people that work at the bank are part of entertainment, right?
15:27My background is entirely entertainment, and I joined the bank three years ago because it's a fantastic partner.
15:32But also, they were looking for more and more entertainment expertise to be able to better serve the clients.
15:38So I think that view of making sure that we stay really connected to entertainment is important.
15:44And then, as you've said, our relationship model, working with our clients, knowing what's going on in their business,
15:51understanding what's happening and changing in the current industry,
15:54and being able to come up with ways to help you optimize efficiency in your businesses, right?
16:00So we do that on a relationship level.
16:02So we talk to clients.
16:03We go out, and we say, how's it going?
16:05What's working?
16:06What's not working?
16:07And we do better, and we do have the benefit of having this incredible technology organization
16:12that can then work with you one-on-one and build that out, particularly in the software company area.
16:19And, David, does this filter down to the talent level?
16:23I mean, do clients even notice this stuff, or it's just like, hey, make it seamless and keep me out of the weeds?
16:31I'll be honest with you.
16:33The older clients, no.
16:35Younger clients are definitely into this technology, and they love it,
16:41because Agilink, about five, six years ago, really did an overhaul on their software,
16:49and it became much more user-friendly for our clients.
16:54So some clients love to see everything.
16:57They want to see every invoice and click a button and pay a check, pay an invoice.
17:03We have that ability for them.
17:05So now we can go as far as we want with the client, how involved they want to be in the process,
17:12which Agilink gives us that ability, which we didn't five, six years ago.
17:18And they're on the forefront of the technology, and they really tailor Agilink to the entertainment industry,
17:27and they listen to us business managers, and they listen to us and they implement some of our ideas,
17:34which is wonderful to have a company that will do that for us business managers.
17:40Will you talk a little bit about, because we partnered very closely.
17:43Sorry, I'm asking the question.
17:44Go ahead.
17:50You're doing a very good job.
17:52Will you tell us a little bit about how we partnered with you?
17:56Because you were one of our first adopters of InvestLink.
17:58And again, I don't want to get too much in the weeds into what these things are, but I will tell you anyway,
18:03which is that it's an integration we have for the financial investment data into Agilink.
18:08But I think it's a great story to tell in terms of how we partnered with you early on in developing that product
18:14to specifically meet the needs of business management.
18:17Right.
18:18So it was always labor-intensive to get all of our clients' brokerage statements every month
18:26and regurgitate that data into our accounting software.
18:31I had a full-time person that was their whole job, just doing journal entries for clients' brokerage accounts,
18:40at Schwab, Merrill Lynch, wherever, booking the interest, dividends, capital gains.
18:46And I talked to them about this, and they actually listened, and they came up with a product called InvestLink,
18:53which basically goes out to Schwab, Merrill Lynch, all the custodians out there.
18:59And the data feeds in every day with the client's interest, dividends, and so everything is live.
19:05When I'm talking to a client, if you've mapped out your charts right,
19:10all the data that comes in automatically goes into the correct general ledger account,
19:16which has saved a tremendous amount of time.
19:19And I love technology, and it's actually, you know, I know a lot of people are fearful of it,
19:25and they're worried they're going to lose their jobs, but I never looked at it like that.
19:28It just enhanced our relationships with clients.
19:31I was able to put people in different positions that were, I think, more meaningful,
19:35and more client-facing, and doing things that were more proactive than reactive.
19:41So that's how InvestLink helped us.
19:45And I'm curious, are Erin or Shaheen and David kind of typical for clients,
19:52in the sense that there's a lot of input, or are there other clients that are just like,
19:57yeah, whatever, just send me the checks?
20:01No, I think more and more everyone wants transparency in their financial business, right?
20:08There's a lot of things going on in the world.
20:10There's a lot of fraud.
20:11There's a lot of changes, right?
20:12You want to be able to see your financial picture, and you want to see it quickly.
20:17So I think that end user, whether it be one of David's clients, or Shaheen's clients,
20:21or one of our banking clients, they want to be able to see everything.
20:25So having that at your fingertips in an app, in a portal,
20:29so that you can access your own data regularly,
20:32and it's not behind the iron curtain of your business manager or your agent,
20:36I think is really, really valuable for the next generation.
20:39It should be really valuable for all of us, but more and more for the next generation
20:42to see that readily, quickly, immediately.
20:46And for any of you, as you sort of look ahead to the future
20:51of this kind of entertainment pay ecosystem,
20:56are there innovations that are next on your wish list?
21:00Goals in terms of like, well, I wish I could do this, and that kind of thing?
21:05I'd love to hear from you guys.
21:06Oh, man, yes.
21:08There's a lot of stuff we want to do.
21:09I don't know how much of it I could speak of.
21:11Generally.
21:12Generally, yeah.
21:13I think making, you know, what I call everything we do here
21:18is like the broccoli of the entertainment agency, right?
21:21It's like, it's the boring stuff, it's things that, it's not sexy,
21:25but you need it to have a healthy organization, right?
21:28You have to have it, and you have to be really good at it.
21:31And in technology, the less people know about you,
21:36the better you're doing your job, right?
21:38I actually don't like to be known in a company,
21:40because if everybody knows my name, then I'm not doing my job very well.
21:44So what we really do is become the platform that everyone uses,
21:48but no one knows that it's actually being built, right?
21:52Make the experience so seamless for the organization, for everyone,
21:55that it just works.
21:57You come up in the morning, you want to see how much you got paid,
21:59you want to see what's coming down the pipe, and it just works.
22:02And there are steps to take to get there.
22:05And that's my ideal vision in identifying,
22:08working with CMB and with other partners to get there,
22:11so that when you wake up as a business manager or client,
22:14things are just working for you.
22:16Right.
22:17Yeah, yeah.
22:19I'd love to see, well, David, you go ahead.
22:22Well, my next wish list for, let's say, AgileLink,
22:26would be integrations with tech software.
22:30That I'll be talking to you guys about.
22:32That would make our life a lot easier.
22:34That's one thing.
22:37I think there's things going out there where it makes me nuts.
22:40Our clients always come to us to fill out their W4s, their I9s.
22:47I would hope that these payroll companies and the studios
22:50would have all that on file one day,
22:52so you guys aren't having to go out and redo all this paperwork all the time.
22:57We have it, but I think this can be a more seamless process.
23:02And I know there are some firms working on that.
23:04Yeah.
23:05I think that would speak to some of our document management thinking, right?
23:08And I think that's a great thing to point out.
23:10I would love to see us round out the ecosystem, right?
23:13I don't necessarily want us to be everything for everyone,
23:16and I'm not going to build everything for everyone, right?
23:18But I would really love to see us continue to partner with our ability
23:22to integrate more broadly with more platforms, right?
23:25So Shaheen has other technology providers that he's working with.
23:29I want to be able to integrate with that
23:30and pass the data all the way through the ecosystem.
23:33Same thing, right?
23:34If you have a proprietor that you're working with in the tax area,
23:38I want to be able to integrate to get that data end-to-end
23:41so that you have the full picture,
23:42but then my teams are not necessarily having to build everything
23:45and being an expert in all areas.
23:47So I think those integration points are really where I'd like to see us focus.
23:50Okay.
23:51Interoperability, the next frontier.
23:53Yes.
23:54Also, are these mobile-friendly?
24:00In other words, whether you're desktop or mobile,
24:03it's the same experience.
24:05I would assume, probably incorrectly,
24:07that this stuff can get so complicated
24:10that it doesn't translate to the smaller screen?
24:14Yes.
24:15I think everything is –
24:16we all love to do everything in our pocket now, right?
24:18So that's where all of our business is done.
24:20If it doesn't fit in our –
24:21I don't actually have my phone in my pocket at the moment.
24:23But everything is in our pocket,
24:25and so if we can't do it on our mobile app,
24:27then it doesn't really exist, right?
24:29I know we have some clients who don't even have laptops anymore,
24:32and clients, talent.
24:34Everything is on their phone.
24:35So yes, everything should ultimately be accessible via mobile app,
24:38but it's also hard when you're dealing with financial data
24:41to get it delivered in a really meaningful way in a snapshot, right?
24:45So we're continuing to evolve that output
24:47so that it's really accessible in a meaningful way in an app
24:50and that we're doing so safely and responsibly.
24:53Have we covered off on –
24:55because there's so many brands in this portfolio,
24:57you know, Agilink, Investalink, Exactuals.
25:01Have we –
25:02Payment Hub.
25:03Payment Hub.
25:04Don't want to forget that.
25:07How has that evolved at this point?
25:11Well, I think Citi National Bank's taken a really great approach
25:14to purchasing software companies
25:16and then growing them and developing them to fit into our ecosystem.
25:21So we're going to continue to do that
25:22and manage those software companies and evolve them and bring them
25:25and then learn from each other, right?
25:27We've got a lot of different technology here
25:29and a lot of really great technology partners, right?
25:32So continuing to build out that technology
25:34and getting the best of the ecosystem that we can.
25:38Got it.
25:39Well, for a conversation about broccoli,
25:42I think this was delectable.
25:45Thank you all for walking us through this here today.
25:49Thank you very much.
25:50Thank you, guys.
25:55Microsoft Mechanics
25:56www.microsoft.com