Management and talent consultancy will focus on creative companies in the advertising content creation, production and post sectors
Industry vet Dee Tagert has launched management and talent consultancy Sage Ideas. The new venture will draw on Tagert’s experience spanning advertising, production and postproduction at such companies as jumP (where she was managing director and partner), JWT, R/GA, RSA and Levinson, Israelson & Bell. Her mission at Sage Ideas is to help creative people manage their companies smarter and achieve measurable results.
Tagert noted that these are uneasy times for owners of companies that service ad agencies and clients, and her insights can help make a difference. “Our industry as a whole is in a state of flux and facing great challenges,” said Tagert, who has held top leadership positions with both the AICE’s New York Chapter as well as on its International Board. “I wanted to take the sum total of my expertise and knowledge and share it with multiple people and businesses, instead of just deploying it on behalf of one entity.”
Current Sage Ideas clients include two production houses, a music studio and several editorial shops.
Tagert has hands-on experience on everything from budgets to workflow to staffing and strategic direction. As for the biggest benefit Sage Ideas can bring to clients, she related, “Often it’s just knowing what mistakes not to make. I think one of my greatest skills is in seeing the big picture and beyond in terms of where the business is heading and how to prepare yourself for it.
“I also think partnerships can be complicated things,” Tagert continued. “It can be very useful to have an independent and objective set of eyes taking a fresh look at what you’re doing. It can be just a small adjustment that a company needs to make, after which everything falls into place. That’s what I can bring to the party.”
Sage Ideas enters a unique niche in the production and post industries, related Tagert. “There is no legacy of management consultants or time-honored business textbooks to turn to for guidance in this business,” she said. “Running a successful company can be a self-taught experience, and often these lessons are learned the hard way. My job is to help smooth that process along, and provide some depth and experience, whether it’s for a talent search, a restructuring, a re-organization, help with accounts receivable, just about anything.”
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More