EXCLUSIVE: Worldwide Production Agency has just named four agents and the company’s controller as partners in the six-year old firm. New partners are Kristen Billings, Molly Bruns, Brian Goldberg, Trevor Kossack, and Louiza Vick. This is an agency that keeps growing through acquisitions and adding agents.
In 2010, founding partner Steven Jacob merged his Jacob & Kole Agency with Richard Caleel’s The Caleel Agency in 2010 to initially create WPA. Two years ago, Frank Balkin left Paradigm as its co-head of production to head WPA’s TV division, and last month Erin Searcy joined the agency from her previous job at the Gersh Agency. Bruns is the WPA’s controller.
The agency opened its London office about a year ago, led by Barnaby Laws.
“Everyone has been here since the inception of WPA,” said Jacob, with the one exception of Goldberg, who joined with Balkin in 2014. “We’re making them partners because we have a firm belief in employee-owned companies. It’s a very different model for Hollywood, but we’ve strived to get to this point. To us, it’s the new Hollywood. Everyone is intimately invested. The talent we look for in terms of Brian Goldberg, Frank Balkin and Erin Searcy, we are looking for people to come help operate the machine.”
