Sean Grumman has spent the past five years building Verve’s talent department from the ground up, but he says he’s just getting started.
Grumman is a 25-year veteran of the entertainment industry and previously worked at CAA and WME before becoming a partner at Verve in 2020. He joined Verve when it was just a lighting agency with a mission to build a talent agency business.
“I started working with 14 clients on my own,” Grumman told Variety. “I don’t want to say how many people we have right now, but it’s a lot more than that. And we have 20 people working on the talent team and helping out.”
Mr. Grumman is a native Angeleno (and avid Dodgers fan) with long-standing ties to Hollywood. His uncle is Ken Stovitz, a longtime CAA agent, executive, and producer. Grumman fondly recalled his own early days as an intern in the CAA mailroom, reading all the scripts his uncle was reading for clients.
“In third and fourth grade, I read more scripts than I read books,” Grumman said. “I just fell in love with it.”
After more than a decade at CAA and four years at WME (considering the global pandemic), Grumman said he was ready for a change. He met with Verve’s leaders, found his interests and ideas to be very aligned, and agreed to join and spearhead their talent representation efforts. He praised Verve co-founders Adam Levine and Bryan Besser for building a culture that fosters collaboration between different teams and giving clients access to all aspects of the business they want.
“In the five years since Sean joined Verve, he has built our talent team into a formidable force,” Besser said in a statement to Variety. “He has developed a select client roster of culturally and market-impacting actors and multiple talents, and has built a team of top-performing agents who align with his passion and purpose to advance and diversify creative careers. He has also been an integral part of Verve’s leadership team, focused on Verve’s growth and expansion, and the agency’s team-driven culture.”
Twenty-five years later, what still excites Grumman when he comes to work each day?
“I get to work with people who are as passionate as I am,” he said. “I bring passionate, hard-working talent agents to work with me. It’s exactly the same mission statement. It’s never changed…At the end of the day, you’re signing and working with people who are as excited about this business as I am.”
Grumman illustrated his point by citing clients such as recent Emmy winner Noah Wyle and “Watson” star Morris Chesnutt. In addition to being a consistent on-screen actor, having starred in shows such as “Watson,” “Doubt,” “The Best Man,” and “Dear From Detroit,” Chesnutt also develops film projects based on intellectual property for which he controls the rights.
“For the past two years, I think (chestnuts) have been available for 10 days,” Grumman said. But Grumman said the Verve team’s ethos isn’t built around booking clients into every job to get the highest pay. Instead, Grumman said he wants to help his customers express themselves creatively and explore new passions.
The same goes for Ben McKenzie, another of Grumman’s clients, known for starring in shows such as “Southland,” “The OC,” and “Gotham.” When MacKenzie came to Verve and said she wanted to become a crypto expert rather than trying to steer her into another TV or film role, Grumman and her team stepped in to help. McKenzie has now co-authored a book with journalist Jacob Silverman called Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, testified at a Congressional hearing on the subject, and directed the documentary Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, which premiered at SXSW in 2025.
“I think we have a very customized approach to how we treat our customers,” Grumman said. “I think we’re taking the time to listen to them. What do they want to do? And we’re trying to build with them. I think we have time to listen a little bit more. And I think the other teams are really engaged and excited to do it with us. And if they need something, we help them. If we need something, they help us.”
This approach has helped Grumman’s team attract both established and up-and-coming agents. For example, veteran agents Josh Rahm and J.R. Ringer came to Verve in 2022. Since then, Ringer client Josh Hartnett has worked with directors like Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) and M. Night Shyamalan (The Trap), guest-starred on FX’s The Bear and is set to star in a new Netflix limited series. Rahm, meanwhile, played the role of Juju Yabu in the first season of the hit FX drama, which led “Shogun” star Tadanobu Asano to an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe win.
Earlier this year, Verve hired New York-based Barrett Bischoff (who Grumman calls “an amazing agent”) to gain a foothold on the East Coast, while also promoting talent coordinator Lacey Hunsucker to agent. “Lacey is a very young agent,” Grumman said. “We saw an opportunity and brought her in. We were like, ‘Let’s see what we can get.'” She has a great work ethic, so we promoted her quickly. ”
Looking ahead, Grumman said he sees the continued expansion of Verve’s talent pool and digital representation as key elements of the agency’s future. Additionally, he is hopeful for the industry as a whole to see a recovery in production in and around Los Angeles.
“I was driving to work today and saw the production twice…It’s so exciting to see the power of entertainment. It feels like the vitality of our city is coming back.”
