Ari Kenneth Greenburg is President of WME, currently the largest talent agency in the world with over 500 agents and $1 billion in annual revenues.
Throughout his career, Greenburg has been primarily a television agent, representing writers and producers of popular programming. He has helped package hits such as Only Murders in the Building, Stranger Things, Reacher, and Wednesday. He has led the negotiations for some of the biggest players in television & film, including Judd Apatow, Kevin Hart, Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton, and Robert Downey, Jr.
On a recent afternoon, he took a call from an Oscar-winning screenwriter just before speaking to students in “Humanities in Action: Alumni Career Conversations” (HUM20 ) about his career trajectory, his industry, his day-to-day work, and what he looks for in new hires.
Greenburg initially planned to major in English at Berkeley but shifted to economics. During his time at Cal, summer jobs and internships helped him define his interests and hone his skills. An internship in brand management for Proctor & Gamble quickly taught him that he wasn’t interested in product sales. A summer job in Barnes & Noble attuned him to the qualities that make a book a bestseller — another valuable skill for an agent.
“Storytelling, which is the business of Hollywood, is more interesting than tech.”
After graduating in 1994, he got his start in the marketing department of a small production company. He kept reflecting on what he was looking for professionally, and was drawn to agent roles because he wanted to be involved from the very beginning of a production. Within six months he had moved to ICM, a major talent agency, as an assistant to one of the agents. And when his bosses left to form their own agency, Endeavor, he joined them and quickly rose through the ranks.
Endeavor is now WME and Greenburg has been President since 2016. Greenburg leads the day-to-day activities of the agency, which employs over 1700 people. His company is constantly hiring… and half the employees are under 30. Hiring recent college grads, he explains, relies heavily on on-the-job training. “It's an apprentice program. Within two weeks you know how to answer a telephone or write an email. Within a month you have a pretty good feel for Hollywood. Within two months, you really get the hierarchy within the agency.”
He’s also a believer in liberal arts education: “I think developing taste is something you get from a liberal arts background.” And taste, he explains, is a vital job skill for an early-career agent reading 20 scripts per week. Refining taste over time — putting in the proverbial 10,000 hours — lets him spot potential quickly, identifying hits like This Is Us and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Greenburg likes to hire Berkeley graduates because they’re smart and adaptable. But intelligence, he says, is only one of the core attributes for succeeding in his industry. “You need to have attitude, taste, moxie… If you work as a talent agent, you better be good at customer service, you have to go the extra mile, and you have to have answers.”
Greenburg went the extra mile as a speaker. He enthusiastically answered student questions, and was equally enthusiastic in his assessment of HUM20. “I never had a class like this at Berkeley. This would have been very cool.”