Mechanical Engineer To Managing Talent In Bollywood And Beyond: Vijay Subramaniam’s Journey

Founder and Group CEO of Collective Artists’ Network, Vijay Subramaniam, runs one of the most exhaustive talent management agencies in India. In an exclusive interview, he talks about his journey and the challenges involved. Be it marrying his first girlfriend, or deciding to not sit for a single campus placement interview after completing mechanical engineering, Subramaniam has always been sure of the things he wanted in life. He credits it to his upbringing and the fact that his father was an army officer.

The Indian talent management company Kwan was rebranded as Collective Artists’ Network with Dhruv Chigopekar and Subramaniam as the co-founders in 2021. They worked together at Kwan as well. Kwan was founded by Anirban Das Blah in 2009 and Madhu Mantena, alongwith Subramanium and Chitgopekar, were the among founding members of the agency. Blah and Subramaniam also worked together at Mahesh Bhupathi’s Globosport Entertainment. Kwan got into a joint venture with Los Angeles-based entertainment and sports firm Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 2012 and in 2016, bought the CAA stakes, taking over the joint venture. The agency now works in varied fields of entertainment including films, shows, music, sports and digital content creators.

Subramaniam shares that he was always into entertainment, and was a heavy metal drummer during his younger days in Bangalore. “That is how I got into entertainment. I also interned with Globosport. By the third year into mechanical engineering, I understood this is not my callling. I did not sit for a single campus placement interview. I was very clear I wanted a career in entertainment. After Globosport, I set up a company that was later restructured as the Collective of Artists Network in 2018. I do not operate in the greys, I operate in the absolute and I was clear, even when my band broke up, I never went to anyone else. I am an eternal loyalist.”

Subramaniam says talent management is very different now from what it was. Now, it is a lot more than simply being the bridge between celebs and advertisers. “It is about building enterprises around creative people. There is the sales and the marketing part, and both the things need to work hand-in-hand. The value creation also needs to work from the perspectives of finance as well as legacy. It is not brokerage anymore, as it used to be. We deal with it as a craft, we treat our clients like enterprises.”

Taking about competition in the business, Subramaniam is reminded that production companies such as Sony, and Yash Raj Films, have all diversified into talent management, but he seems least bothered. “To be honest, the comparison is wrong. It is like comparing Myntra and Flipkart. My business is not just films, that is just one part. Someone like Yash Raj may compete in the vertical of film celebs but we have so many other verticals. We have a digital tech platform, a social media platform, we also have sports and music verticals. We may have companies competing with us in verticals but not horizontal. We are leading the charge, we are front runners. In fact, with our content creator platform, we are setting the creator economy even as we build the best agency in the country.”

He adds that his agency also helps clients in diversifying their talents and skills. We have access to the best advertisers in the country. We have offices in 11 cities outside the metros (in India). We are connecting with small ventures and looking at creator economy differently. It is not just about marrying an Instagram post with the brand. We are in this to make the market better. We have a clear program on up-skilling the creators. We recently did a workshop on mental health, we have workshops on skills such as creating beauty tutorials, for example.”

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity).