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WME is laying off 30 employees, as the company seeks to streamline operations amid industrywide shifts, Variety has confirmed.
The job cuts represent about 3% of the talent agency’s total headcount. Richard Weitz and Christian Muirhead, the co-chairmen of WME, announced the layoffs in an internal memo Wednesday.
“Our industry is undergoing profound change — from consolidation and shifting economics to new technology and evolving client needs,” the co-chiefs wrote. “At the same time, new platforms are creating more opportunities than ever for talent and creators to reach audiences around the world.”
The cuts come after one year ago, Endeavor announced the closing of the deal to go private with private-equity firm Silver Lake. With the move, Endeavor changed its name to WME Group, reflecting its refocusing on the representation business. Ari Emanuel, who founded the talent agency in 1995 and most recently served as CEO of Endeavor, assumed the role of executive chairman of WME Group. Mark Shapiro is president and managing partner of WME.
Since the go-private deal, Weitz and Muirhead wrote in the memo, “we’ve been working diligently to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing responsibilities, and removing bureaucracy, in a singular effort to stay out in front. As such, today we have made the difficult decision to reduce a number of roles across the agency.”
The WME co-chairmen said they expect “conversations with impacted individuals to be complete by the end of this week.”
The layoffs were first reported by Deadline.
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