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Olivia Metzger’s client list is a who’s who of some of the biggest names in broadcast journalism: MSNBC president Rashida Jones, “CNN This Morning” anchor Poppy Harlow, newly named host of “Meet the Press” Kristen Welker, CNN senior legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid and Fox News’ Ben Hall, who was recently gravely injured while covering Ukraine and now a New York Times bestselling author.
It helps to have connections: Before she founded her talent development firm, OManagement, she counted names like Lester Holt and Jeff Zucker as colleagues at NBCUniversal and worked as an agent for 10 years at CAA.
Not bad for someone who started her career as an unpaid NBC intern after “having failed out of college.” She studied at Hartwick College but “didn’t go to class” because she “had a sick mother at home and didn’t focus,” Metzger told TheWrap for this week’s Office With a View. She eventually graduated by taking night classes at Fairleigh Dickinson.
Metzger is marking her New York-based boutique’s fifth anniversary this summer. So what’s the secret to her success? Being selective when it comes to her clients and prizing authentic journalists above all else.
“If I’m going to lose sleep over people and if I’m going to sacrifice time with my kids, I better darn well believe in the people that I represent,” Metzger said.
“I think the big agency had a run. And now I think the smaller and purer, the better,” she added.
Metzger has the resume to back up her eye for talent. She climbed up the ranks at NBC over the course of 20 “very, very happy” years. As an intern, she would routinely stay late and walk the halls alongside legends such as Tom Brokaw. She even taught former CNN and NBCUniversal chief Jeff Zucker how to play Tetris on the PC. (“He would come in, and he would have beat my high score,” Metzger recalled.)
Each of her jobs taught her valuable lessons that she would later use at her firm. NBC News taught her “how subjective this business is and about how much personalities and conversations and narratives fit into people’s career trajectories.”
As the manager of talent development at CNBC, she learned the value of passion and authenticity when it comes to broadcast.
“CNBC was ahead of its time. The audience knew that the people on TV knew what they were talking about,” Metzger said. “You can’t just get a script and read it.”
Her time as director of talent for MSNBC during the Sept. 11 attacks taught her about resiliency in the face of a relentless news cycle. During her time there, Metzger and her team hired now-household names Lester Holt, Amy Robach and “The Talk” co-host Natalie Morales.
But Metzger’s favorite job was the one that most clearly foretold her future as a talent development agent: vice president of NBC’s owned and operated television stations. In that role, Metzger found talents like Kristen Welker — “who I’ve grown up with” — Craig Melvin, Don Lemon, T.J. Holmes and DeMarco Morgan and placed them in small markets before moving them up.
After 20 years working for NBC, Metzger took a chance and changed professional tracks completely to become an agent for CAA, “where they let me build anything I wanted to build,” she said.
Those 10 years working for one of the biggest entertainment agencies in the business gave her the last bit of the insight and experience she needed to build a different, more specialized type of firm. Metzger shared how she’s steering her operation to compete with the largest talent agencies in Hollywood and media.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What was the moment that you knew you had to leave CAA and go out on your own?
I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly entrepreneurial. I think I am by accident. I don’t think I would have ever had the guts to do it had I not left NBC to realize that I could stand on my own two feet.
I’m very fortunate I have a lot of clients who are are now getting to the top of their game with Rashida Jones and Kristen [Welker] and Poppy Harlow and Paula Reid and some of my Fox clients. But I really like finding people that nobody knows and getting to tell their story. It’s much easier to do that on my own.
What do you look for when you’re looking for talent?
I always say people have to have the right DNA. My whole thing with clients is I approach things very holistically. I look for people who are super curious, have the right perspective on their job and what they’re going to get out of it and who have a really keen sense of self-awareness. This business can give and take on a dime. You can be nowhere in your career but standing in the right place and the right story happens and your career is made. As quickly as that happens, you could have a boss who loves you, and five minutes later they’re gone.
I always say to people that as long as the room is rooting for you, as long as you’re true to yourself on air and as long as you’re bottom line a journalist and you’re doing this for that reason, it’s an insurance policy against the craziness of the business.
The reality was that the scope and scale of CAA was unnecessary. For the handful of clients that I have that are doing books and doing other things, I can manage that all on my own. I put them in business with a book agent that is perfectly suited for them. I know what I don’t know, and I know the news business.
You’ve connected clients with so many different projects. How has that changed from when you first started out?
It used to be that talent was synonymous with their news organization, like Walter Cronkite. But Steve Kornacki doing sports is not hurting him with elections. I have a client who I cannot name who’s about to do a scripted series that does not take away from what she’s doing. The industry is trained to believe that news people aren’t allowed to do those things.
Kornacki has the most versatile deal. Now he has a news deal, he has a local deal where he does regional sports, he has a West Coast deal for development, and he’s got a sports deal. And it’s four separate deals. I’d love to take all the credit for it, but it happens to be that I have a very talented client who was the star of an election. All of those things will complement the other.
What advice do you wish you could have given yourself five years ago before you started your company?
I will say I had a lot of support from a lot of people when I did it. I don’t know that I would have done anything differently. That sounds so arrogant, and I don’t mean it to.
The time and effort I put into my long-standing relationships really paid off. I had a lot of people support me, who I’d known for years, and a lot of people who I didn’t know came out of the woodwork. I guess if anything I probably should have assessed my resources better and had more faith that people were going to step up and support me.
