Sean Grumman has spent the past five years building the talent department at Verve from scratch — and he says he’s just getting started.
Grumman is a 25-year veteran of the entertainment industry, having previously worked at CAA and WME before becoming a partner at Verve in 2020. He joined Verve when it was solely a lit agency with the mandate of building their talent representation business.
“I started with 14 clients all by myself,” Grumman told Variety. “I don’t want to say how many we have now, but it’s a hell of a lot more than that. And we’ve got 20 people that are working in the talent team and helping out.”
Grumman is a native Angeleno (and diehard Dodgers fan) with longstanding 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 and in the mailroom at CAA, where he would read every script that his uncle was reading for his clients.
“I read more scripts my junior and senior year than I read books,” Grumman said. “I just I fell in love with it.”
After more than a decade at CAA and four years at WME (throwing in a global pandemic for good measure), Grumman said he was ready for a change. He met with Verve’s leadership and, realizing his and their interests and ideas were very much aligned, agreed to come onboard and spearhead their push into talent representation. He credited Verve co-founders Adam Levine and Bryan Besser with building a company culture that fosters collaboration between the various teams, allowing their clients to get access to every facet of the business that they want.
“In the five years since Sean has joined Verve, he has built our talent team as a formidable force,” Besser said in a statement to Variety. “He’s developed a curated client roster of actors and multi-hyphenate talent who have cultural and market-moving impact, and he’s built a team of top-performing agents who match his passion and purpose for elevating and diversifying creative careers. He’s also become an essential part of Verve’s leadership team, with a focus on Verve’s growth and expansion as well the agency’s team-driven culture.”
After 25 years, what is it that still excites Grumman about coming into work every day?
“It’s working with people that are as passionate as me,” he said. “It’s bringing in talent agents to work with me side by side that are also passionate and hard working. It truly is the same mission statement. It’s never changed…At the end of the day, it’s signing people and working with people that are as excited about the business as I am.”
Grumman pointed to his client Morris Chestnut to illustrate the point. Chestnut has not only been working consistently onscreen — starring in the CBS drama “Watson” as well as shows like “Reasonable Doubt,” “The Best Man: The Final Chapters,” and “Diarra From Detroit” — but is also developing film projects based on IP to which he controls the rights.
“For the past two years, [Chestnut] has been available for 10 days, I think,” Grumman said. But Grumman said that the Verve team’s mentality is not built around booking their clients into every possible job for the maximum payday. Instead, Grumman said they want to help clients express themselves creatively and explore new passions.
Like Ben McKenzie, another one of Grumman’s clients, known for his starring roles in shows like “Southland,” “The O.C.,” and “Gotham.” When McKenzie came to Verve and said he wanted to become an expert in cryptocurrency, rather than trying to steer him to another TV or film role, Grumman and the team set out to help. Now, McKenzie has published the book “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud” with journalist Jacob Silverman, testified before a Congressional hearing on the subject, and directed the documentary “Everyone Is Lying to You for Money,” which debuted at SXSW in 2025.
“I think we have a really customized approach of how we treat clients,” Grumman said. “I think we take time to listen to them. What do they want to do? And then we try to build with them. I think we have a little bit more time to listen and I think the other teams are really in it and excited to be doing it with us. And if they need something, we help them. If we need something, they help us.”
That approach has helped Grumman’s team attract both established and up and coming agents. JR Ringer, for example, came to Verve from ICM in 2022. Since then, Ringer’s client Josh Hartnett has worked with directors like Christopher Nolan (“Oppenheimer”) and M. Night Shyamalan (“Trap”), guest starred on “The Bear” at FX, and is set to lead a new Netflix limited series.
Earlier this year, Verve also hired New York-based Barrett Bischoff (whom Grumman calls “a fantastic agent”) to build their foothold on the East Coast, while also promoting talent coordinator Lacey Hunsucker to agent status. “Lacey is a very young agent,” Grumman said. “We took a chance and we brought her in. We were like, ‘Let’s see what you got.’ And we promoted her very quickly, because she’s got a great work ethic.”
Looking ahead, Grumman said he sees continued expansion of Verve’s talent and digital representation as major components in the agency’s future. Beyond that, he is hopeful for the industry at large that production will pick up in and around LA.
“Today, I was driving to work and there were two different times I saw productions shooting…It’s so exciting to see the power of entertainment. It feels like the lifeblood of our city is coming back.”