Features
ICM Partners Continues To Break Ground
– Mark Siegel, Yves C. Pierre, Jacquiline Reynolds-Drumm
When Rob Prinz stepped down as ICM Partners Head of Worldwide Concerts Feb. 22, it accelerated a plan already in motion to elevate Robert Gibbs to a top leadership position within the company. Named Head of Contemporary Music in August, Gibbs within six months was named Head of Music, becoming the first Black executive to head a major agency music division.
In addition to Gibbs’ promotion, the shuffling of the executive ranks provided another opportunity: ICM has launched a Concerts Leadership Committee, consisting of Jacqueline Reynolds-Drumm, Yves C. Pierre, Ari Bernstein and Mitch Blackman, the goal of which is to not only keep the department on the cutting edge of client opportunity, but to groom the next generation of department leaders.
“One of my biggest goals is to continue to mentor and educate, because that’s a big part of our business,” Gibbs tells Pollstar. “A lot of African-American kids, from all over the country, don’t know what an agent does. There’s not a ton of us in the agency world across the board in film, TV or music. That’s starting to change and we still have a long way to go.
“It starts with a commitment to the recruitment of motivated African-American candidates to seed into the ground floor. But then it’s about a commitment to mentoring. It’s not just saying I’m going to give you an opportunity to work here and then you’re just off on an island on your own. It takes everyone in the agency to spend the time to keep up the morale and motivation there, because, again, it’s a new world for a lot of young folks.”
As Black music in varying genres has had a massive influence on global culture for many decades, the number of agents, promoters and other behind-the-scenes gatekeepers has been overwhelmingly white and male.
As facilitators of storytelling talent that drives culture, homogeneous corporate culture is an anachronism. Recruitment and elevation of underrepresented people is essential to moving the business forward.
In recent years, moves have been made to rectify that imbalance – whether organically or through efforts to recruit and support professional people of color and women in the wake of Black Lives Matter and the Time’s Up movements.
“Not only are we about diversity, because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s great for our business,” says Mark Siegel, who steps into the chair vacated by Prinz. “It’s a great thing to do for business, which is something that I think a lot of people don’t really quite get. But at ICM, that really is our vision and our mission statement.
“Rob’s passion, his energy and his natural leadership abilities are really going to be on full display, and will really benefit ICM Concerts and the company,” Siegel continues.
“Overall, he is fearless and he will express exactly how he feels and sees it, but in a way that is digestible for our colleagues. Sometimes you have to have really hard, difficult conversations. But the goal isn’t to just have a conversation; the goal is solution.”
Being on the front lines of diversity and inclusion efforts is not a new position for ICM Partners. The agency established in 2017 a “50-50 by 2020” initiative to achieve gender parity, which it did a year ahead of goal in 2019.
At the same time, Gibbs was deep in conversations with ICM Partners CEO Chris Silbermann about expanding his role within the agency and rising to the top tiers of the music department.
“Before George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement started, Chris Silbermann and I were talking in 2019 about my next step forward, my next role. And I mean many, many conversations,” Gibbs says. “At the end of 2019, Chris decided on a target date for the announcement of my promotion to Head of Contemporary Music.
“Then the pandemic hit, the music stopped, and we decided it was best to take a beat. A couple of weeks before the George Floyd tragedy occurred, Chris reached out to me and said, “We need to pick our conversation back up and get this figured out.”
Gibbs’ promotion wins high praise within and beyond ICM Partners. Siegel, who was elevated to Head of Worldwide Concerts in the division reshaping, says of Gibbs: “Rob not just earned and deserves this opportunity, we really need him now to step up with Prinz’s departure. [Prinz] did a very, very fine job. And now that I’m kind of sitting in Prinz’s chair, I was not going to be comfortable without Robert being right there with me.
“He’s got a level of empathy and sympathy and understanding what it’s like for our young people, not to mention having a really cool and vibrant personal roster. So it was quite a natural and organic progression for us, essentially.”
Gibbs, whose roster includes J. Cole, PartyNextDoor, Ari Lennox, JID and Earthgang, acknowledges his mentor, agent Dennis Ashley, for instilling in him a desire to pay it forward. As a young man navigating his way through the major agency system after spending time with an independent boutique agency, Gibbs made his way to Ashley’s desk, where the veteran agent took Gibbs under his formidable wings.
“Dennis has been an incredible mentor to me. I owe him so much for taking a shot on me, always believing in me and bringing me with him to ICM when we left CAA,” Gibbs says. “As a role model he showed me how to be generous with my time to help build other agents’ careers which helped prepare me for the role I have now.
“In many music departments, it’s a top-down system where there is a powerful leader and then a lot of agents doing their thing,” Gibbs continues. “What we have created at ICM are layers for people to step into leadership roles, get mentored from above but also be mentors to those coming up the line. That helps everyone both listen and be listened to and that creates a unique and excellent culture that I am proud to be a part of and for me it all started with Dennis.”
Gibbs’ experience is also the impetus for the creation of ICM Partners’ Concerts Leadership Committee, which is positioned to further a more democratic approach at ICM Partners as opposed to a top-down hierarchy in which rank-and-file staff has little or no input or feedback from decision-makers.
“The nature and the perspective behind this committee is that sometimes you need advocates,” Pierre tells Pollstar. “I see the committee as having an advocacy seat at the table, having the conversations where you have agents, or assistants or coordinators, that might not necessarily want to go to a department head regarding a problem or an issue. They might want to go to someone they feel might have a more middle of the road perspective.
“I think it gives everyone a little bit more of a voice, a little bit more help, a little bit more perspective as decisions are made,” she continues. “And I’m super excited about it. I think it’s a stepping stone. This is a place of no boundaries, really, and more about making us better and stronger as a department and creating and fostering more dialogue. I think it’s a stepping stone for that.”
Joining Pierre on the committee is one of her own mentors, Reynolds-Drumm, whom Pierre cited last year as someone who should join her on Pollstar’s Women of Live list.
“She literally trained me before I got my formal training five months into the job,” Pierre says. “She was super hands-on in the beginning of me learning the ropes of being at an agency. And then we just developed a friendship, a bond and an understanding. And it’s gotten us to this point.”
Gibbs is especially effusive about the team that forms his leadership committee brainchild.
“I think it’s important to highlight Yves and Jacqui, who are two young women who have been incredible,” Gibbs says. “I always say, women in many ways are better than men, leadership being one of the ways. And those two ladies have really shown extraordinary leadership. And I think Mark [Siegel] will ditto that in why they’re part of this leadership committee.
“And so when we talk about diversity, Yves who is African-American, and Jacqui, another woman, it’s awesome to have two amazing women alongside Mitch Blackman and Ari Bernstein, who all bring completely different viewpoints to our leadership team and that’s what it is all about here at ICM.
“Different viewpoints being represented in leadership capacities. Together, they are going to make for a great leadership committee.”