Anirban Das Blah, MD and CAA of Kwan, India’s leading talent management venture on how he christened his business, and how he grew it
Anirban Blah loves to ‘KWANtify’ his relationships: which, he says, means putting people first, before business and profit. It might sound like corporate platitude. More so, because Blah’s entrepreneurial story of building India’s leading talent management venture is located in the dog-eat-dog world of the Indian movie industry.
Though Blah’s job leaves a lot of people starry-eyed, he insists, “It’s like any other business. Our focus is clients, too, only they are a bit more famous,” says the 34-year-old entrepreneur, who started KWAN (now, known as CAA KWAN after a joint venture with the Los Angelesbased Creative Artists Agency) with co-founders Indranil Blah, Vijay Subramaniam and Dhruv Chitgopekar in 2009. It was their second stint in the nascent world of talent management after Globosport, Mahesh Bhupathi’s sports management company where Blah was the CEO. He left because he wanted a sense of ownership.
His celluloid inspirations probably scripted these moves. Jerry Maguire, the ambitious sports talent manager, played by Tom Cruise in a 1996 Hollywood movie of the same name, wrote in a manifesto in the beginning of the movie, that real value in their business lay not in the billings they clocked, but the relationships they built. In a dramatic scene in the movie, Maguire’s client, football player Rod Tidwell, called this intangible relationship—“not just the money, not just the coin, it’s the KWAN–love, respect, community and dollars, too, the whole package”. That is a mission statement woven into CAA KWAN’s very identity today. Blah deconstructs this mission simply. “Essentially, it’s about doing what’s good for the long-term, and not be blinded by short-term gain. When we entered the industry, agents were mostly considered transactional and exploitative. That was the norm. We didn’t want to be that. For me, Jerry Maguire was a way for living with some soul and integrity.” In the memo Maguire writes, he says: “We are pushing numbers around, doing our best, but is there any real satisfaction in success without pride?” It might have got Maguire fired from Sports Management International in the movie, but it triggered a way of business and life for Blah, who has watched the movie nearly 25 times, and makes sure he reads the full text of the manifesto a couple of times a year. Not that the symbolism of their name, or values is easy to miss—a huge poster of the movie signed by the cast and crew dominates CAA KWAN’s Mumbai office, and the About Us page on its website carries the conversation between Cuba Goding Jr and Tom Cruise. It’s certainly helped Blah and his four-year-old firm reap rich, filmiishtyle rewards. There is no cinematic exaggeration here. Just check out some of the stars KWAN represents.
Ranbir Kapoor is a KWAN man. That’s big casting for Blah’s team considering Kapoor is the only male member of his illustrious family to have hired an agent, that too when KWAN was barely three-months old. Others like Frieda Pinto, Deepika Padukone, Genelia D’Souza, and Sunidhi Chauhan and Anurag Kashyap have also picked KWAN to manage their corporate endorsements, live appearances and events. Also, KWAN isn’t restricted to Bollywood glitz. It has a very strong southern glamour with clients like Mahesh Babu, Ram Charan Tej, Allu Arjun and Kajal Aggarwal; and a thriving sports management business unit. And, the galaxy keeps growing every month.
For Blah, though, living his inspiration day in and day out is more about what happens inside their offices, not on the frantic sets of ads and movies. “You need to be inspired every day. People aren’t inspired by a movie, or by their boss. It’s about having a great workplace.” An important step to that was making sure they set up a “nice business” with “nice people” in it. In fact, more than the glamour talk, it’s this aspect that gets Blah really going “We don’t necessarily hire the most qualified people. We hire the nicest ones, people who can be trusted.” Plus, they are young, love what they do, and don’t have any filmy connections. Each person in his 80-people team across its offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad has these attributes, Blah asserts. His formula of niceness in the supposedly big, bad world of showbiz is seeing near-blockbuster results. Profit and revenue numbers are hard to come by for this industry, and Blah doesn’t divulge numbers, but in the four short years CAA KWAN has been in existence, it’s become one of the top talent management agencies in the country.
By shunning a top-heavy structure, Blah has de-centralised power, and brought processes, entrepreneurial zeal and accountability to his clientservicing teams. It’s a rare professional enterprise in an industry not known to be like that. “Ours is a venture-funded type of company. Each team handles a personality, and has complete responsibility. Having a top-heavy structure leads to erosion of power. If there are people who are talented, how do you just put one of them on the top?” he asks seriously.