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Scott Clayton, WME Music Co-Head, Exits Agency for UTA: Update
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Scott Clayton
News broke Friday that Scott Clayton, WME’s co-head of music and Nashville office co-head, has left the agency. WME confirmed the news, saying only that, “We appreciate all of Scott’s contributions to the agency over the past four years and wish him all the best.”
According to multiple press reports surfacing after this story’s publication, Clayton is now heading to United Talent Agency, which declined comment.
Clayton’s reported move to UTA follows his move to WME from CAA in 2017, which at the time was something of a seismic shift in the music agency landscape. His rock-leaning roster then included a number of live heavy-hitters, including Kings of Leon, Dead & Company, John Mayer and Zac Brown Band. Fellow agents Matthew Morgan and Buster Phillips joined Clayton at WME shortly thereafter.
In June 2020, after longtime WME head of music Marc Geiger surprisingly announced his departure, Clayton was elevated to one of three co-heads of WME’s music division along with Kirk Sommer out of the Los Angeles and Lucy Dickins in London. Meanwhile, three months later in September 2020, Samantha Kirby Yoh left her position as head of East Coast Music at William Morris Endeavor becoming United Talent Agency’s co-head of UTA Music, joining David Zedeck in overseeing the company’s worldwide music operations.
UTA opened new Nashville headquarters in June 2021 at the site of the former downtown Carnegie Library at 225 Polk Avenue and expanded its agent roster there in the year previous with agents Jeffrey Hasson, Jenny DeLoach, Brett Saliba, Matt Korn and Emily Wright.
As co-head of WME’s Nashville office, Clayton oversaw the department along with Becky Gardenhire, Joey Lee, and Jay Williams. It was a position Clayton knew well having worked at CAA for 17 years previously where he became one of five co-heads there along with Marc Dennis, Rod Essig, John Huie and Darin Murphy.
Prior to Clayton’s WME arrival, Jay Williams, Joey lee, Rob Beckham and Greg Oswald co-headed the agency’s Nashville office.