EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the holidays, talent agencies traditionally pin agent stripes on young staffers, most of them coming out of agencies’ trainee programs. WME has just completed its round of promotions, upping 15 to agent across multiple departments in U.S. and international offices.
Dara Kaye, who is based in Washington DC, has been promoted in the books department. She joined WME in 2023 from literary agency Ross Yoon following the agency’s acquisition by WME.
Noa Sturgeon and Sara Pincus, participants in WME’s agent trainee program, have been promoted within the brand partnerships department. Sturgeon joined the agency in 2022 and is based in London; Pincus is based in Nashville and joined in 2018.
The newly minted agents in the music department are Lauren Cunningham, who works in the country genre out of Nashville, as well as contemporary music-focused Yolande Poitras and Jake Wilk in Beverly Hills, Ella Fox in New York City, and Matt Fayers and Crosby Stewart in London. All came up through the agent trainee program after starting as assistants, with Cunningham rejoining WME in 2021 after a 2019 stint, Poitras and Wilk coming on board in 2019, Fox and Stewart in 2021, and Fayers in 2018.
Two other agent trainees, Nathaniel van der Post and Evan Krask, have been promoted in the digital department. Both based in Beverly Hills, van der Post joined WME as an intern in 2021, with Krask getting his start in the mailroom in 2018.
Anisha Joshi has been upped in the non-scripted department. Based in Beverly Hills, she joined the agency in 2020 as an assistant and was part of the agent trainee program.
Claire Davis has been promoted in the scripted TV literary department. Davis, who is based in the Beverly Hills office, joined the agency as an assistant in 2019 and participated in the agent trainee program.
Alexandra Mayer and Hunter Kaplan, both based in New York, have been promoted within the sports department. Mayer joined WME in 2019 as an assistant and specializes in sports broadcasting, while Kaplan joined in 2022 as an assistant and focuses on the NIL space. They too were part of the WME agent trainee program.