More than a decade after its founding, Kogod’s Business and Entertainment program has garnered a reputation as a talent powerhouse.
It’s reflected not just in the accolades it receives, like when Billboard named Kogod one of the nation’s top music business school in the fall of 2023.
Today, the program has also become a launching pad for the industry's biggest agencies, from Creative Artists Agency to United Talent Agency and William Morris Endeavor (WME).
“We’ve had this incredible run of students who have gotten hired,” said John Simson, Business and Entertainment (BAE) program director and longtime industry veteran. “Some of it has to do with the relationships. The program has been successful in getting students into internships.”
But it’s not just the Kogod alums populating the ranks at the industry’s most prominent agencies that have Simson calling his run overseeing the BAE program among his finest career achievements.
He’s also closely followed the career trajectory of a growing list of alums who started at those agencies and then parlayed their early career experience into roles at some of the industry's most diverse, exciting, and far-reaching sectors.
“Everyone who’s in this business understands that you’re building a resume, you’re building a track record, and you’re doing that so that when somebody has a need, they look at you and go, ‘Oh, you’re the person I want for this position,’” Simson explained. “You’re putting yourself in the right place to transition to something that may actually be what you wanted to begin with.”
We caught up with three young professionals and alums from Kogod’s Business and Entertainment program who followed precisely the track that Simson describes. They branched out to new and exciting opportunities after gaining early-career experience at a central agency—in this case, WME, the juggernaut talent agency founded in 1898 that today represents top artists, creators, and entertainers from music to comedy, film, sports, and beyond.
A business and entertainment program minor at AU, Aaliyah Lambert touts Simson himself as a significant factor in initially landing her internship at WME. The position ultimately led to her first full-time job after graduating.
Since her time at WME, Lambert has found herself at the intersection of music, entertainment, and brand marketing in her role at Hart House, the quick-service plant-based restaurant founded by Kevin Hart.
Today, she works with brands freelance and has recently collaborated with Playa Society, a brand specializing in women’s sports apparel. She notes that recent campaigns have seen her work with WNBA and college basketball players. She produced an event at the Women’s Final Four in Cleveland and has plans for the upcoming WNBA All-Star Live.
She oversees collaborations and partnerships today, working alongside the company’s CEO.
Lambert: It truly is a ‘grad school for the entertainment business.’ The experience taught me how to work under pressure, multi-task, and understand the ‘ins and outs’ of touring and what that looks like. I got to work across the spectrum.
I was able to use my culture relevancy and understanding of the dynamics of how to work with different talent, influencers, and athletes to kind of parlay that into making bigger moments for the actual brand—whether that was a production shoot that we were doing, or working with the Lakers number one draft pick, or thinking of cool things that Kevin Hart could be doing.
It involved looking at community-driven moments that we could also plug the restaurant into. So I think it just gave me a lot of foresight into understanding how to work with talent and what’s essential when it comes to us asking for something.
I feel like my education and understanding entertainment through the program that Kogod offered helped set this foundation of being able to be super multi-faceted, where now it’s like, Ok, I can use what I learned from those classes from my past experiences, to now show up with this fashion-sports crossover, that crosses over into entertainment.
It’s building relationships: of course, with your professors, but I would say really with your classmates. I think about the people I came up with in the program and how I utilized them for mutual support.