Shelly Marchetti is a powerful and impressive executive at United Talent Agency (UTA) who works within the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based ventures group and business development.
Her job is endlessly fascinating and critical within the organization, and we wanted to learn more about her day-to-day. We caught up with her to learn more about her job and how she approaches her role that’s immersed in the world of creators and creator-led businesses.
Ultimately, Marchetti’s role involves looking for strategic ways to help her clients — oftentimes creators — build businesses. “We spent a lot of time working closely with our clients and really doing a deep dive into what's authentic to them and what's authentic to their audience,” Marchetti said. “We also spend a lot of time doing category and market research,” she added.
Some days, this means working to create an entire company, like Chamberlain Coffee, from scratch. That included both incubating the idea in-house and bringing on best-in-class incubators who could lead the charge on building a business around a specific idea and concept. Licensing and building a multi-category approach was also important, she pointed out.
Who she works with
Marchetti’s team works directly with creators, but they also work very closely with incubators, manufacturers, brands, VCs, and private equity groups. “Part of my role has been creating a structure within our team that helps us think about unique and outside-of-the box ways to do what we need to do with our clients,” Marchetti said.
She’s also been working with companies at various stages to help them amplify their brands in a faster way. Doing so means adding talent to the company to help them hit their goals, and there’s usually equity involved, Marchetti pointed out. “Those are the opportunities we’ve been really sinking our teeth into a lot more.”
How she identifies opportunities
When a brand comes to the team at UTA and they’re looking to connect with talent, Marchetti and her colleagues already have a good sense of which clients are going to be authentic storytellers for the brand — whether it's from a messaging standpoint or someone who's going to authentically lean in from an entrepreneurial standpoint.
“A lot of what we do is working backwards into what's going on in the market,” Marchetti said, adding that she focuses on zoning in on the gaps. From there, the team identifies categories that they think could be a unique opportunity for various clients on their roster.
Interested in building your creator brand or working for one? Reach out to us to start the conversation.
Alexis Benveniste is a New York-based writer and editor whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Bloomberg, Vanity Fair, and other outlets.
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