A Conversation with Kerry Washington, Pilar Savone, & Sherrese Soares | Global Conference 2024

A Conversation with Kerry Washington, Pilar Savone, & Sherrese Soares | Global Conference 2024

good afternoon everyone we’re obviously feeling good yes nice I like that so nice to see you thank you all for being here I hope that you have found the last couple of days to be Illuminating and productive uh want to give a shout out to those who are streaming at home uh hi hi everyone uh I am so thrilled to be here in conversation uh on this topic of creating content that matters with three in rible women Carrie Washington whom you all know uh is an actor writer producer director author and of course whenever I see her I always think of her as Olivia Pope the role she’s so brilliantly played on Scandal um she is also the founder of Simpson Street Media and she’s joined by parar Savon who is the EVP of production and development at Simpson Street as well and also on the end here we have Sharice Clark sorz the founder and CEO of Harbor viiew yes her own fan club Harborview Equity Partners which is a multi strategy Global investment firm focused on investment opportunities in the entertainment and media space so welcome to all of you Carrie I want to start with you because in the wake of participant media’s closing that we have just read about recently uh and for those of you who don’t know participant media was a social impact Media Company uh you joined the likes of George Clooney Matt Damon a du in signing a letter um along with many other Heavy Hitters to uh invest in values-based storytelling and quote open our hearts to experiences vastly different from our own the letter goes on to say in the face of unprecedented change and uncertainty we need deep Partnerships between diverse storytellers Advocates and movements for change now more than ever so how does that reflect what’s happening in the industry right now oh what a great question um you know I want to say first of all I didn’t sign the letter because Matt Damon or George Clooney reached out to me I actually got some of those phone calls from Hollywood folks and was like I don’t know let me take a look at it really I signed the letter because ien Pooh reached out to me and she who’s she’s an incredible incredible Community organizer and activist around Health Care supp the domes yes of the domes workers and when she reached out and said we really want you to sign this letter then I listen so it’s really about understanding kind of where the messaging and the need was coming from and realizing that at Simpson Street we always think about social impact as part of how we define success but we’ve often found ourselves being invited or um assumed by other people that our main goal is social impact people say like your work can be political or you’re trying to make a statement we’re never making media because we want want to make a statement we just happen to Center marginalized communities in our storytelling because we’re women because I’m a person of color and often in culture when you Center somebody who other people are not used to being centered it’s seen as a political act for us it’s not a political act for us it’s smart business we know that great content about all of us resonates sells works so I think for us it felt like there are going to be companies who want we want to have the freedom to lean into entertaining content that speaks to us just because it does and to make choices about what we create that that is built around Innovation and storytelling but I do think there should be companies and they should not just be run by black women there should be companies out there that are run by a really inclusive Board of of impact leaders that are focused on making change it shouldn’t be left to just artists of color or women to tell those stories it should be everybody’s responsibility yeah I was listening to the panel yesterday with Jeffrey kenberg Brian graser and Lisa Joy and they were talking about this disruption that the entertainment uh industry is currently in the midst of um with consolidation exactly this week we were talking about how um you believe it is the Wild West in what way is it the wild west and do you think that diverse stories and diverse narratives are being sacrificed in the this unpredictable era um I do I think that that is one of the ramifications of the strike I think that there’s much less slots buyers are trying to figure out what people want and those stories are being told less so that’s it’s maybe more for the mass audience and not so Niche or not so social impact driven or idea driven it’s bigger broader stories and it is impacting people they’re watered down they really are so it’s hard it’s especially when you are creators like us who we are driven to those stories we want to tell those stories about mental health or sexuality or whatever it is and the buyers are afraid and they’re scared they’re not taking the risks that they were prior to the strike meanwhile that’s what audiences want right people want to tell stories about the truth of who we really are about the truth of The Human Experience but often these big conglomerates they don’t want to take a risk to tell a story about truth until somebody else has done it and they know it works and then they feel like oh now I can convince my risk averse board that this is a smart business move smart business moves are not doing what somebody else has already done and it works cuz that’s done smart business move is always about Innovation it’s about being bold it’s about being disruptive um but getting people to understand that from a Content perspective can be challenging at times Well there always has been this sort of derivative aspect of how things move in the industry but you look at what everybody’s watching right now which is baby reindeer and that’s what everyone is talking about and whoever took a chance to say yes let’s do that was bold and brave and that’s not happening right now Sharice as you look at what’s happening in the industry with all of the Media consolidation from a financial perspective where do you look for opportunities yeah it’s a great question I mean absolutely in this moment I feel like especially because our company started with investing specifically in music content we know that 10 years ago or maybe 15 years ago or so the music industry obviously experienced a massive disruptive Force called Napster engaging in the business and really throwing an unpend um the business model as we know it um what that fostered though as we fast forward 15 years hence we’re all having really exciting conversations about Regional Mexican music or afro Beats or lots of different genres where 20 years ago they weren’t given an opportunity or given a lane to actually come to the surface well what’s happened 15 years hence is that this decentralized way that audience can get to the content That Matters to them has given voice and given visibility to those audiences existing and not only existing but also having a very strong point of view around return of investment or return on investment so I am actually as an investor um really excited about this moment and I know there’s obviously a lot of pain in this moment for how do we get storytelling around these diverse audiences um made in this moment when everybody is constricting but in this moment as an investor I see a real great opportunity to start to Think Through um audience and building for audience and centering audience because just like the music business the video business film television the way that we all consume is now so decentralized people have paths to audience in a way that they didn’t have those same paths 15 years ago I bet everybody in this room has a list of 10 great shows that they’re watching and there’s probably overlap that we all have that’s maybe 15 to 20% but the other 80% is something new that you’re going to share with me or tell me about but that doesn’t mean that you’re alone in this world there’s millions of other people around you because we’re talking about a global denominator if you will and that Global denominator is by definition not homogeneous so I see it as a real Financial opportunity and also happens to be because it’s very close to my own lived experience I’m obviously in case you didn’t notice a black woman I happen to grow up in um in Queens and I happen to be the child of immigrants and so the music that I grew up on most of you in here may have never heard of right like I grew up on Byron Lee and the dragoneers and Cent 5 Cent 10 cent you don’t know that d right you may not know that but me and millions of other people like me know that and so now we live in an economic system that is starting to create value against those audiences and so I’m really excited about that um and I I just have to ask you Sher is what do you what do you look for yeah in your Investments are there prerequisits for what you’re looking for so the prerequisits for us are twofold one is obviously um we’re thinking through and I think the last one of the things that the last decade or so around creation of content has done is it really has EXP exploded the dollar per cost um of hour of programming um in today’s market we’re thinking through how do we do that but how do we do it smarter and how do we do it even more cost efficient so cost and cost efficiency is super important but then secondarily I’m really focused on people who are talking specifically to specific audiences and not trying to be you know a mile wide and an inch deep but instead go a mile deep and an inch wide around audience cuz I think you can get to audience way more efficiently so those are some of the things we’re thinking about we obviously think about great teams we’re not really interested in being you know a script reader like that’s not my Ministry I I did not um grow up to be a person that’s going to write direct act I leave that to the people who are expert at doing that but our real Viewpoint is do we see an an opportunity to talk to audiences to maybe unique audience wherever that audience may be and really partner with creators around a coste effective way to get to to them but see this is such a breath of fresh air because one of the things that we’ve been talking about is so often as a creative the finances are tied to this business model where people who are trained in business are giving creative notes and don’t actually understand that each of us may have different core competencies so when I hear you say as an investor I’m not going to stand by the Monitor and give notes that is a revelation because so much of what we do as producers is protect creators from these business infrastructures where we’re very grateful for the budgets we’re really excited I mean we’re in a time when there’s so much constriction for us to have the number of shows that we have in production to the amount of content that we’re producing this year is we’re very proud of it it’s it’s it’s unfathomable but what we do a lot of the time is act as gatekeeper because we’re really trying to protect our writers protect our directors because they know their audience they know their vision and we don’t want them we want them to be in partner ship with where the money’s coming from but also to stay true to their Vision because that courage is what inspires audiences yeah absolutely and I think well listen what we all know right now and I’m sure all of the major infrastructures as we know it um Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery um Universal Etc they’re all going through this moment of massive their Napster moment massive disruption there are large infrastructures built for another time but part of what we understand is that there’s a lot of duplication of effort right like so you go and you engage really great producing partners and then you have a duplicate infrastructure internally to to to duplicate that work effort in the context of a shifting model where cost and cost infrastructure has to be considered I think we’ll probably see some of that rationalization around is it really necessary to have duplication duplication of effort either you hire a production company they’ve done a great job and you hire them again or they haven’t and you don’t but thinking about duplicating that that initiative or that or that work product then just explodes cost so how do we think about again getting to audience at the best cost dollar per cost per hour but also being specific to audience and letting people do their core competency letting creators create and letting those of us that think about creating paths to Audience by you know investing in that or helping to get to audience focus on doing that I feel like forging a partnership here a little relationship um another thing that I believe Jeffrey kenberg was saying yesterday is we’re in the middle of this disruption and none of them uh and and and these are Titans in the business could predict where where we’re headed but they all as I said they’re Titans they’re Legends in the business where does that leave everyone else this unpredictability how are you changing your model to adapt to this this trend of unpredictability right now I think part of what unpredictability does is it inspires Innovation it’s freedom in some ways you know one of the things that we did in recent years was force ourselves to think outside of traditional models of of content creation so if you had asked me seven eight years ago would one of my favorite things to do would be to host a show on YouTube I would have said you’re out of your mind but that that has sort of in our in our exploration of what else is possible in the face of a pandemic in the face of you know kind of limitations according to different deals we have that was like here’s a here’s white space for us this is an opportunity and it’s led to Webby Awards and new relationships and new Partnerships with corporations new Partnerships with new audiences like it’s really in some ways the wild west if you can step up anybody can be sheriff in the wild west you know and can you talk about some of those unique Partnerships that you have been forging that maybe 10 years ago you wouldn’t have even thought about yeah I mean at Simpson Street we really believe in the power of partnership what we do is incredibly hard and so for us if we have Partnerships with different writers or other production companies that makes us able to do a lot more we can we can bounce off of each other somebody else may have a really good skill set that I don’t necessarily have and also so it gets us to be more Innovative um we have a show right now that we are having a really hard time selling and there’s a music component so we were like let’s go to Inner scope let’s talk to them let’s see if we can bring in another package it with a musician um so it’s really just it’s being strategic and it’s about talking to everybody out in the business right now and maybe you have to sit back you have to wait six months you know and just figuring out what the wild west is in this moment and trying have a little foresight of what it’s going to be but for us who can we do that with right who can we make the best possible show or movie with that will get out there to the mass uh we were talking about uh how in some ways diverse narratives and storytelling has been sacrificed in this sort of chaos that’s happening Charice you’ve said you want to be culture protectors yes I love that term how can you how can you do that that in this during these tumultuous times yeah I mean listen I think again one of the things um that I’m excited to build because I know two truths about The Human Condition one is that you start listening to music before you’re even out of the womb right so music is a part of The Human Experience storytelling it’s a part of the human experience and that has been true for 50 years it’ll be true for the next 50 years so understanding that as a core value as any investor it’s almost like fundamental to if something that’s fundamental to The Human Experience is to me deeply investable then the other piece is then like let’s again let’s look at the denominator and the world is not homogeneous right so homogeneous storytelling is by definition leaving value on the on the table or leaving value on the floor so for us it’s really about finding really great people who understand who Their audience is wherever that audience may be I obviously as a consequence of my lived experience can see people who otherwise are unseen to most other people right so that’s women that’s people of color Etc but I love investing again anywhere where people kind of really know Their audience so as an example we have a huge heavy metal portfolio right deeply engaged audience I also have a lot of hip hop on R&B shout out to the Drake Kendrick battle um I me epic right now um but but what that means means is that we’re super focused on really just again people who understand their audience and partnering with creators but we get to be be in this valued seat where we our team looks like the audience it looks like a global audience we have a team that reflects Society very intentionally because our business to is to find ways to invest behind audience Trends and then to partner with creators who can do that so very naturally I think what you’ll see coming out of the other side of what we invest in is things that talk to a diverse audience group and again most investors know that the key to portfolio management and risk management is diversification like you never have all your eggs in one baskets the same is true as we think about how we think about our portfolio construction Around Talent and um and talent management so some of the things we’ve invested just to give you a sense is we’ve invested in two production companies as far outside of our music portfolio we invested in macro media which is led by Charles King and has done lots of great work lots of award-winning work we also recently invested in a business led by Javier chapas called Mucho Mas they’re focused on the latinx audiences so very rich pipeline of lots of opportunities but that’s how we think about it when I think about the idea of protecting culture I think about a show we have on on Hulu on their Onyx Collective which is an initiative really built around protecting voices and elevating um voices of creators of color so this is a show that I don’t know if it would exist on Hulu if it weren’t for Onyx Collective it’s a very particular very specific story about a father daughter but the father has been in prison most of her life gets released from prison comes to live with her so it’s kind of like an Odd Couple Comedy but that deals with the ripple effect of the criminal justice or Injustice system so here’s a show that is very very specific about a very particular lived experience inspired by a real story by a woman whose dad Tracy McMillan who’s a family therapist her dad was in and out of prison her whole life when we go to South by Southwest to Premiere the show here we are telling this very specific Niche story about this community this family we do four sit-down interviews with journalists each of A different race three out of the four journalists had a parent in the criminal justice system it was wild and you realize the universal truly is in the specific because even people who don’t have a parent in the system they have a loved one in the system they’ve been in the system themselves or they just have a parent who doesn’t have a problematic relationship with a parent whether they’ve been in a system or not right so you start to understand how these stories if you have the courage to go deep and be specific and honor culture and not try to make something that’s for everybody you actually wind up making something that’s for everybody because you make something that’s human truly honest Humanity kri are the buyers buying this kind of content well that’s what’s interesting for us we got lucky right when you have the courage of of a platform like Onyx Collective that’s creating room to do that you have that but we fell in love with a documentary recently that was around similar themes because we’ve noticed how important this story is so this is incredible documentary daughters that we produce that we help to produce premiered at Sundance won all the awards we thought this is a perfect fit for the kind of framework of the company that we’re with but it’s not but again you say okay great who else wants it right it’s fine we’re able to kind of tell the story that we’re telling in this space in a really beautiful way that fits that brand but we have other relationships in the in the business in the community so we found a home that documentary is going to be on Netflix so we’re able to tell that story in a different way in a different platform but you have to be willing to have all different kinds of Partnerships to embrace the different um modalities of how people want to deliver content and say like where is the fit going to work in this moment and not and not put all your eggs in one basket to say like we want to be able to tell all different kinds of stories in all different kinds of ways and so we’re going to be willing to do that in in ways that are very different from how the model worked 10 years ago where like everything I do is going to be in one home it doesn’t work anymore yeah I mean I I I totally hear what you’re saying I think people really respond to um that truly authentic storytelling rather than when it becomes performative and we all know of those projects that have tried a little too hard um to make sure that they were ticking off all the boes yeah yeah uh Sharice you were talking about your incredibly diverse music portfolio I love that you have such a big heavy metal portfolio rock on um and I’m curious to know what you think of the Drake Kendrick like who you think is coming out on top take no sides I won’t put you on the take no sides I take no sides but as a kid of the ’90s who grew up on hip-hop as a kid from Queens I think it was a special moment for hip-hop over the weekends and so I think that I think that’s really interesting um I think there’s something to love about both um but I’m I’m not taking siid well it is amazing just how quickly we can get access to music but that part I think again it continues to tell you that you can engage audience you can get feedback quickly um in different ways right the way the the old way of um we all grew up on again I’m a kid of the ’90s I grew on musty TV right um on Thursday night right the whole lineup I could probably still list what came on at 8 and 8:30 and 9:00 um that’s just not the way that we consume it’s not the way that kids consume it’s not the way that they talk to each other right so I’m firmly of the view that culture cannot be contained the big systems can say this is going to be the thing this is only going to be thing like again if there’s anything for the large um conglomerate media platforms to learn from what the music business went through 10 15 years ago is that they can no longer prescribe that and I’ll pick on both artists because I love them both that Taylor shrifter Beyonce is going to be Taylor sfter Beyonce it comes from the audience the audience tells you who’s going to be their next tayor who’s going to be their next Beyonce the audience tell you tells you that they want to watch um re what did you say it was baby reindeer the audience tells you that and now if you can find ways to follow to where the audience is and create stream you know a a through line to the economic model where the audience can tell you what they want to pay for that’s I think the future of content and by the way it’s a brilliant future for Content because that empowers so many different voices to be at the table yeah when I first started working in television people would say like well you can’t do that because you have to sell soap in between the acts right like the whole Focus was on serving The Advertiser and and so you were serving corporation instead of serving story and that is what has shifted that you have to meet the needs of your audience that you’re Now by Shifting the model to subscribers and also you know interaction that happens Beyond subscription it really is this strange democratization of who gets the power now and it’s no longer the laundry detergent company well that that instant feedback there’s something to be said from that from the audience I mean shice as I was saying you have such this such an impressive portfolio of musicians and music but in some ways music sort of stands the test of time yeah right I we can all think back on music that generates certain feelings and so on um do you feel the same way about investments in 100% film and television 100% I mean look I still I don’t know how many people in here still do it but I know I did for 20 plus years or 30 plus years of my life every Christmas sit down with my family and watch Sound of Music right or you know um think about all of the content around I mean like look at the Scandal like you know I would still go and sit and watch series one through you know seasons one through how many do we go seven eight I don’t remember season one through seven or eight because Olivia Pope was my um was my spirit animal um yes so yeah I do think that content and I it’s a different type of test of time there’s a different economic model with it um look at the Resurgence of a different world and how they’ve been using that to talk about um HBCU and the importance of those educational institutions so yeah I do think that that that that content has and can stand the test of time the biggest piece of value in um or the the the largest strength of value in lots of the conglomerates is their Library actually right it’s not the networks we know that networks are under material pressure because people are cutting cords and shifting their viewing habits it’s the library so yeah content does stand the test I just have to ask you this because we’re we’re at a milkin conference but can you give us um a a sense of what a return on investment looks like that was my big question yeah so so I’ll tell you who I work for first so that you can put in context why I drive for returns um I work for the city of Los Angeles I work for found foundations and endowments FAMU um Florida ANM University is one of our investors I work for a foundation called the executive leadership Council and they do great work around making sure that there’s diversity in corporate boardrooms so that’s who I work on behalf of and so what I’ve told them by being a steward of our firm is that if they invest in us we’ll deliver a return so that they’re they can continue to do good work in their communities or for whatever Mission oriented work that they’re doing so that pensioners can retire in dignity um and they can live their lives in retirement well so that’s what I work for so as a consequence of that I promise my investors targeted returns in the High Teens or low 20s and just kind of any kind of typical private Equity type returns so that’s so economic return is important the better economic return I do the more money I get to do even more great work but then I also think about the seat that I get the privilege to sit in my parents were immigrants my grandmother came here and scrubbed floors my dad drove a taxi before he started real estate business um and it’s really important to me to sit in this really special intersection of seat where I don’t even know how I got the opportunity to do it um but is that I represent something bigger than myself and I leave a legacy for little girls who look like me or little girls who don’t look like me or little girls who are brown to think of themselves as both investors um and to really also be very focused intentionally on narrative because obviously what many of you have never EXP experienced in Olivia Pope before or Alisa Ling before understand about anybody who looks like us or lives in our bodies is whatever you see on television or whatever you hear and so narrative while fun and it’s good to do a carpet it’s great to take a beautiful picture with people who I admire for a long time it’s actually about changing narrative and creating representation so that the world not just people who look like me but the world all of you and all of your various forms um of being understand that there is humanity in all of us so that’s the two things that are really important to me that will determine my return on investment for myself we’re running out of time but my my last question is you know in this era of Dem the democratization of media how do you think creatives uh and artist can really benefit from this time y ownership start down there yeah go ahead I think ownership I think being in Partnership and trying to think about long-term ownership of content and IP if again we’re thinking about where the value is in these large businesses that people are talking about it’s all in the library so how do we create ownership for creators of library that they can own in 20 years from now staying true to themselves and really uh sticking it out when there’s a story that they want to tell to know that there will be a place for them to tell that story ask the question again how how can creatives really benefit from this time of democratization it’s hard to know because we’re still in this sort of transitional phase it’s hard to know but I think a combination of both of those answers I think I mean I I agree I would say yes and [Music] to to be willing to not be upon Pawn CU I think so often creatives are infantilized and taught that we don’t have the power that we need other people to make decisions for us manage Us control us direct us and I think in this moment you have more creative standing up and saying I understand the power of what I have to offer and I will partner with you but I will not be your Pawn Yeah so well said krie Washington tar savone Sharice thank you so much I will see you back here thank you

Dynamic storytelling has the power to bridge misconceptions and illuminate the remarkable experiences of underrepresented communities. These narratives resonate with and inspire those that may have been otherwise neglected by mainstream media. Shared through wider platforms, this content also serves as a conduit to meaningful dialogue that challenges conformity and paves the way for a more inclusive entertainment landscape. Join this session to hear from three trailblazing women that have recognized the significance of such dynamic storytelling and are creating lasting impact through meaningful content creation.

Moderator
– Lisa Ling, Award-Winning Journalist and Executive Producer, CBS

Speakers
– Sherrese Clarke Soares, CEO and Founder, Harbourview Equity
– Pilar Savone, Executive Vice President, Production and Development, Simpson Street Productions
– Kerry Washington, Actress, Producer, and Director; Founder, Simpson Street; Author, “Thicker than Water: A Memoir”

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