Hollywood Headhunters : Entertainment Firms Go Outside Old-Boy Networks for Help in Recruiting Executives

When John Severino received a telephone call Aug. 11 from a professional “headhunter” on behalf of Prime Ticket, the prominent broadcasting executive wasn’t looking to make a career change. But Severino was lured away from ABC-TV Channel 7 and signed by the cable sports network.

Before the recruiter’s call, Severino was not exactly an odds-on bet to jump ship. For 23 years he toiled in the ABC television network and was its president from 1981 to 1985. Except for those four years, he was the powerful and sometimes controversial general manager of top-rated Southern California station KABC from 1974 to September.

“I had not been seeking a change; I was happy where I was,” says Severino, now chief executive and part owner of the cable enterprise that carries games of the Lakers, Kings, UCLA and USC.

When first approached, he says, he responded that he “wasn’t even interested” in discussing a job change. But the recruiter persuaded him to have a preliminary meeting. In less than three weeks, Severino had signed on the dotted line.

Brad Marks, the man behind Prime Ticket’s recruitment of Severino, is managing partner in charge of the worldwide entertainment division at Korn/Ferry International, a major executive recruiting firm.

He is one of a number of recruiters who specialize in the entertainment business and say they find the industry more willing each year to depart from its traditional old-boy network in favor of professional help in selecting executives.

Executive recruiters like Marks, Robert Fell and Bryant Crouse not only move senior executives to new posts within entertainment and communications but increasingly are finding prime candidates in unrelated industries.

Not every successful manager is suited for entertainment management, the essence of which is “high pressure, high risk and high reward,” says Fell, a pioneer in executive search for Hollywood who started Fell & Co. in 1975.

In some respects, the Hollywood headhunters still are missionaries seeking converts to executive hiring methods long since adopted by many other types of business.

The entertainment business “is where it was 15 years ago in financial services,” says Bryant Crouse, a trained psychologist and former Korn/Ferry executive who recently joined the Los Angeles office of Heidrick & Struggles Inc. as its entertainment specialist.

But, he added, it is “here to stay, really out of necessity.”

The industry is getting more competitive, he adds, and it needs the assurance of getting the best candidates for management. There is a dramatic difference from using professionals, Crouse claims, and the clients “come back after having that experience.”

Recruiters have intensive and sophisticated screening methods to find candidates.

Marks cites the headhunter’s value in “helping companies expand the universe of potential candidates” and selecting ones who can “accelerate the learning curve.”

Crouse speaks of “a methodology that assures that the best possible candidate will come to the surface.” The project often takes six weeks to three months of concentrated effort.

According to Fell, recruiting technique is substantially the same regardless of the type of business. Basically, he says, it involves clearly understanding the client company’s needs and what the job entails, the type of person who can fit the task and, not least, “understanding the parameters of what the compensation level should be.”

Studies Client Carefully

Fell also consults with clients on their overall business strategy and in some cases invests in the client firms. He says his company normally does not handle a single search for a firm but conducts a program of search work on contract for a period of years, adding: “We are very sensitive to our clients’ needs; we know our clients pretty well.”

Marks, whose confidential client list includes a number of major movie studios, says he starts a search by learning about the client organization and its chemistry, then developing a specification for the ideal candidate.

Figuratively, he says, he starts out looking for one with “the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the head of Albert Einstein.”

Later, the prospects are refined by reality and he and his staff may contact 200 people by telephone in a very short period before refining the list to perhaps 35 for interviews in person. From there, further winnowing and then a talk with the No. 1 candidate.

One of the greatest values claimed by the executive search mavens is the third-party objectivity they bring to the process.

Marks says the professional recruiter not only can approach a candidate with an understanding of the economic values for both him and the client company but can buffer them from the frictions and emotions of intense negotiations.

While he did not make the final hiring decision in the Severino case, Marks says he and his staff handled all phases of negotiations, involving attorneys, business managers and accountants, for Prime Ticket owner Bill Daniels.

Marks, who began his own entertainment executive search firm in 1982, merged with Korn/Ferry in 1986. Previously, he was an executive at Walt Disney Co. and ABC Television and once ran his own television production firm.

Bearer of Good Tidings

He compares himself facetiously to two characters from old TV series. One is Digger O’Dell, the “friendly undertaker” of “The Life of Riley,” and the other is John Barrisford Tipton, the benefactor on “The Millionaire,” who gave a million-dollar check every week to some worthy stranger. Speaking of the Tipton reference, Marks says:

“Most people in our business will take my call; it’s not IRS calling, you know.”

His point is that, like the millionaire, he might be the bearer of valuable tidings.

Marks, who talks in a machine-gun style, says he is a devotee of cloak-and-dagger recruiting tactics. He sees them as a way of preventing premature leaks of sensitive hiring developments.

“We use everything from code names to blind telephone lines,” says Marks, who one admirer said was the Scarlet Pimpernel in disguise. “In some cases we communicate with our clients at their homes only . . . total security and confidentiality.”

Much of this hugger-mugger is aimed at keeping a company’s management from learning prematurely that one of its best and brightest is being interviewed by a prospective new employer. But, Marks says, sometimes it is to keep an executive from learning that his boss is looking for someone to replace him.

Still, the unexpected can happen. Marks has a vivid memory of a one-of-a-kind coincidence. He had arranged to have a candidate for the No. 2 position in a company go to a hotel suite to meet his prospective new chief executive at an early morning breakfast. The chief executive of the candidate’s current employer was not supposed to be in the city, but Marks laid on a high degree of secrecy to prevent leaks.

The prospect was even told that if he should meet Marks in the hotel elevator, he was to act as a stranger.

The meeting led to a firm understanding on the hiring, Marks said, and he walked with the two men to the elevator. When it stopped on their floor and the doors opened, they found themselves face-to-face with the candidate’s boss.

“It became quite evident that the CEOs of both companies knew each other, and it was just an extremely difficult, embarrassing moment,” Marks recalls. “I wanted the elevator to go into a quick free-fall, possibly with myself in it. Fortunately, it was after the deal had already been struck.”

‘Cross-Pollination’

While studios still seem to get their chief executives the old-boy way, Marks’ division at Korn/Ferry has assignments for chief operating officers, chief financial officers and heads of film production, home video, distribution and marketing.

Fell sees a growing interest by entertainment management to recruit outside their community, particularly in jobs involving product marketing, including the growing home video field.

Marks likes to call outside hiring “cross-pollination.” As an example of a successful entertainment executive who came from another industry, he cites Gary L. Wilson, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Walt Disney Co., who was hired in 1985 from Marriott Corp., where he held the same titles.

“I think,” Marks said, “that a lot of the visionary-type executives at competing companies, large and small, recognize the need for top-notch executives (with experience in general industry) who can adapt to the entertainment sector.”

As an instance, he says, executives with marketing knowledge in such fields as beverage and food products have important, transferable abilities that could fit in with the home video field.

Not long ago Marks saw a national magazine quoting a Hollywood studio chief about the difficulty of finding qualified, competent and interesting people for some wonderful opportunities, he notes.

In a letter, Marks told the studio executive that the entertainment sector “unfortunately has become a stagnant talent pool,” going on to say, “As we all know, incest breeds insanity.”

Marks adds that “the bottom line is that he is now utilizing our services.”

Fell notes an “explosion” overseas in demand for U.S. manpower and for “intelligent acquisitions” of U.S. entertainment firms. He attributes much of this demand to the privatization of television broadcasting in Western Europe, which has inflated markets for new entertainment products.

And Marks says that, just as American baseball players play for Japanese teams, there is a market overseas for top executives who have “the qualifications and personality to adapt to various international cultures.” Marks said he went to a film trade fair in Cannes, France, last May and, as a direct result, got five assignments to fill positions in Europe with Americans.