TheBy Heather Boerner Pl How Georgetown McDonough grads became big OSCAR MATTSON/GETTY IMAGES OSCAR MATTSON/GETTY Less than a month into Robyn Abraham’s 15-year tenure at the Walt Disney Company, her boss pulled her out of an international business affairs meeting for a frank talk. IMAGES ROBERT WARREN/GETTY 20 msb.georgetown.edu ayers names in entertainment and media. Georgetown University McDonough School of Business 21 “We call it the entertainment business, not Indeed, whether they are producing the entertainment art, Robyn,” Abraham plays for Broadway or the West End, act- (EMBA ’97) recalls him saying. The lesson: ing as television show–runners, producing In the entertainment industry, the numbers theatrical feature and documentary fi lms matter as much as the material. to their blockbuster premieres, or cata- Abraham, then an international business pulting new projects into the worldwide attorney, had nevertheless grown up think- market, Abraham and other Georgetown ing she would be a creative. Trained in clas- McDonough School of Business alumni sical music and ballet from the age of 2, she have found there’s no confl ict between had always envisioned herself as a profes- the creativity of show business and the sional artist. What she became, instead, was number-crunching of commerce. one of the most infl uential international In 2010, the media and entertainment intellectual property and IT-fi nance deal- industry generated $95.4 billion, accord- Amanda Axelrod makers in the entertainment business, help- ing to the U.S. Department of Commerce. It ing to create, negotiate, and close multimil- accounted for 6.4 percent of the U.S.’s core lion- and multibillion-dollar entertainment domestic product, according to the Inter- The Producer and sports deals that have gone on to win national Intellectual Property Association. xelrod learned to walk by pawing Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, BAFTAs, and Olivier To put this in perspective, that is more her hands along the keys of her par- awards. than the whole of the federal government’s ents’ piano in rural Ohio. Her eyes Still, her job is creative. Finding ways to contribution to the economy in the same Alit up at Disney movies, not only create projects in which everyone wins, put year. Even while the rest of the economy because she liked the princesses, but also deals together, foster and maintain relation- remained fl at, media, entertainment, and because she wanted to sing those songs, ships, and navigate the complicated legal other industries governed by intellectual for an audience. By age 8, she was study- and business world of entertainment, media, property laws grew at a rate of 1 percent. ing voice under a former opera singer. The and other transactions means that her job Or, as Amanda Axelrod (MBA ’12) put previous year, she had told her parents that title is not intellectual property attorney or it when she arrived at Georgetown as an she was going to move to New York to be producer, she says. It’s dealmaker/magician. actor, singer, and writer, “Until I started an actor when she grew up. “My job is to pull rabbits out of hats, cre- talking in the language of numbers — that By the time she graduated from high ate mutually satisfying business transactions, one of the U.S.’s largest exports is movies school at the top of her class, everyone negotiate and close the deals, and make the and Hollywood — I wasn’t sure that some assumed she would be a doctor or lawyer. clients happy,” she says. “How I do that is of my peers took me seriously. But when I After all, both her parents were in the med- through a combination of skill sets, many of gave the numbers, I could say, ‘See? This is ical fi eld. But her answer never wavered. which I learned at Georgetown.” not a random industry.’” “No: Actor, writer, director,” she remembers telling curious friends and family. “It never wavered for me. Show business picked me a long time ago.” So how did Axelrod — who made good on her promise to move to New York and work on Broadway for two years — end up one of the newest graduates of the George- town McDonough? The turning point came in 2009, when a car accident left her unable to drive, let alone work. She wanted to stay in the creative industry she loved so much. But she didn’t have the business skills to make it work. “I realized I had a lot of experience on the creative side,” she says, “but I didn’t have the clout or confi dence on the busi- ness end.” It was not an easy transition. Belting out a song in front of thousands of people turned out to be easier than presenting a business idea to two clients. But Axelrod realizes now that her performing skills are Advertising icon Murray Kalis, an advantage in the business world. composer Stephen Sondheim and “Honestly, at the start of school, I didn’t dealmaker Robyn Abraham know how any of my past experiences 22 msb.georgetown.edu would be relevant in the business world,” for a change. Her husband — the great- channel is in 10 million more homes today says Axelrod. “It took me a while to real- nephew of David Sarnoff, who started than it was two years ago. And while BBC ize that my love for writing, public speak- RCA — had worked in the publishing America’s original production strategy is ing, and storytelling is business experience. industry for years, and she was interested nascent, she likes it that way. It just looks different from other people’s in going into media as well. But aside “I tend to work for the scrappier busi- business experience.” from a passion for pop culture and a child- nesses that need a little more creative think- Axelrod had already started a produc- hood fantasy of being a singer-songwriter, ing,” she says. “The thing about the media tion company, Lexador, before she left New Sarnoff wasn’t sure where she would fi t in. is that it’s all about creativity, even the busi- York for Georgetown. She also sits on the It turned out that her background as ness side. We’re all looking for the special board of directors for the nonprofi t Heiress a strategist — “looking around corners sauce that makes a hit, or the investment in Productions in New York City. Heiress is a and under rocks” for ways to improve a a new business that can become one of the nonprofi t that raises funds and awareness corporation — did the trick. Tom Dooley company’s pillars.” for cancer research through theatrical pro- at Viacom hired her to work in the cor- ductions. She’s currently in talks to produce porate development department of the a documentary, and she is looking to take media conglomerate, which owned cable her new business skills in the direction of channels including VH1, MTV, CMT, and corporate communications and strategy. Nickelodeon. No matter where she ends up, though, “Having spent almost six years in con- she says she knows that her creative back- sulting, I became pretty good at learning ground will always play a role in her new businesses quickly,” she says. “So, they business. gave me a shot.” “I will always do both business and What a shot it turned out to be. Aside creative,” she says. “I’ll always be looking from being able to apply a dispassionate to stage a new show, and to produce and strategic eye to the companies under Via- write more. I’ll always have a hand in the com’s umbrella, she found an outlet for her creative side.” heretofore-neglected creative side. She became a kind of in-house entrepre- The Entrepreneur neur, starting new revenue streams, such as n 1993, Ann Misiaszek Sarnoff (BSBA merchandising of TV show characters for ’83) had a decision to make. After years Nickelodeon. She oversaw the launch of as a strategy consultant, helping com- the channel Noggin, now Nick Jr., as well Ipanies identify weaknesses or exploit as TV Land, with a deal that gave the chan- strengths to drive profi ts, she was ready nel free to cable operators for several years. It was a risk, but one worth taking. “Sometimes you have to be patient,” she says. “You have to take the right bets and use sound judgment.” Justin Falvey Patience paid off. After years at Viacom, and then her job as president of Dow Jones The Pitchman Ventures, where she leveraged the Wall Street hen Justin Falvey (BSBA ’90) Journal brand to create must-attend execu- was a kid growing up in Boston, tive conferences on globally important working in Hollywood seemed issues such as clean technology, she got the W about as likely as reporting to call to move to BBC Worldwide America. Steven Spielberg. The goal: Help create a new strategy for Today, he’s doing both. BBC America. Grow the company. Falvey is co-president of DreamWorks She took her strategic eye and her entre- TV, where he crafts and helps bring to life preneurial instincts to the company, where the creative concepts of his boss, Spielberg. she oversees the North American busi- That involves a lot of matchmaking: writ- nesses, including ad and affi liate sales, and ers with scripts, directors with actors, but home entertainment and licensing. She is mostly shows with networks. DreamWorks helping to grow the overall business in the TV’s business model is based on selling U.S. and support the new strategy to cre- shows to networks, which then carry much ate original programming for the Ameri- of the cost and risk of production.