After graduating from Harvard with a degree in English, Laura Kennedy AB ‘00 & MBA ‘05 knew she wanted to work in live entertainment. “I was, and still am, super passionate about live performance,” she said. While her classmates pursued early job offers, she moved back to London and landed her first full-time job at Avalon, which was a small independent talent management company known for its work with comedians. “I had this amazing experience working in a fairly small, entrepreneurial environment, where I was able to learn a tremendous amount,” she explains. Producing 16 shows annually at the Edinburgh Festival, including the hit JERRY SPRINGER: THE OPERA, gave her a broad and immersive introduction to the business. “We had this huge success. We won the Olivier for best new musical. It was critically about as big of a win as possible. But financially, it was just okay.” Laura recalls that this experience pushed her to focus on the question: “How do you build a commercial business that is still creatively driven?”

That question led her to business school, and eventually to a 13-year tenure at Lionsgate, where she focused on mergers and acquisitions before taking on broader operational leadership. “I thought I’d dabble in m&a for a short period of time, but I loved it,” she says. She ended up staying at Lionsgate for 13 years, where she was COO of their TV business development. Still, she missed the fast-paced, hands-on environment of a smaller company. “I was restless for another, more entrepreneurial experience,” she says. So, in 2019, she returned to Avalon as CEO. “I love the model here because it’s super unique,” she says. Today, under her leadership, Avalon represents over 800 clients, produces 20 TV shows annually, promotes hundreds of live gigs, and manages a global distribution catalog of over 4,000 titles. “I really wanted to be back in an environment where I felt like I could have real impact,” Laura smiles. And she does.

When Laura took on the CEO role at Avalon, one of her first priorities was expanding the company’s literary roster. “We had an amazing roster of comics and performers, and a lot of multi-hyphenates. But we didn’t have that many writers,” she explains. Determined to grow in that area, she led Avalon’s acquisition of The Agency in the UK, which brought in a slate of acclaimed global writers. “It’s been a brilliant ride,” she says. “Thanks to that acquisition, we now have a very, very diversified talent roster.” At the same time, Laura focused on scaling the U.S. side of the business to better support global representation. “Our U.S. business has grown quite a bit over the past five years,” she notes, with Avalon expanding its reach intentionally across several areas.

That strategic growth has included a major investment in live entertainment and an effort to broaden Avalon's production slate beyond its comedy roots. “Live has been a big area of growth for us,” Laura says, adding that the company just opened its first Broadway musical, OPERATION MINCEMEAT, with previews starting in mid-March. Drama production has also become a key focus. “If you look at our track record, it’s almost exclusively comedy and entertainment,” she says. “We wanted to make sure we were well positioned to produce with creators irrespective of genre.” While those projects are still in development, the impact of that pivot will become more visible over time. “We’ve been focused on growth, and also managing through a couple of crises. COVID hit right when I started, and the strikes followed not long after,” she remembers. “Thankfully, we’ve come through reasonably well.”

Laura is clear-eyed about the cycles of genre popularity and the challenges comics face in an evolving cultural landscape, and although she’s working on bringing the drama to Avalon, her commitment to comedy and its creators has never wavered. “Comedy went very out of fashion in the TV space in the early 2010s,” she says, “but we’ve stuck to our mission.” While other companies chase trends, Avalon remains creator-first: “We back really distinctive talent. We try to take a curated, taste-driven approach… And we fight for those voices.” Even as cultural sensitivities have made comedy more complex to navigate, Laura sees risk-taking as central to the form. “Comics put themselves out there every night,” she smiles. “Audiences have always had the right to decide whether a comic is for them or not… And we would have an issue with representing anyone who crossed a certain line, to be clear. But we try to stay forgiving in sort of allowing creators to take those risks. It’s our job to find those voices that we really believe in and support them on their creative and professional journey.”

For Laura, navigating the pandemic required a mix of decisiveness, constant communication, and creative problem-solving. “We didn’t stay in stasis,” she explains. “We took a view on the situation, communicated all the time, and made informed decisions.” While some larger companies hit pause, Avalon had to keep moving. “We couldn’t afford to sit on our hands, but we’re not going to compromise on safety either.” When the U.S. shut down, their show LAST WEEK TONIGHT happened to be on hiatus. “We didn’t miss a week,” she says. “We figured out how to produce it remotely in a safe environment, with John in a room by himself.” Avalon stayed operational by quickly adapting production models: editing remotely, reshaping schedules, and extending timelines to protect health while meeting deliverables. “And, we were one of the first producers back up and running in the U.K.,” she adds proudly.

The live entertainment side of the business, however, was hit hard. “Audiences weren’t going to theaters for a long time… So we had to move away from that. It forced us to get creative.” Avalon pivoted quickly; they developed digital versions of shows for ad-supported streaming, shifted clients into podcasting and audio, and treated the new constraints as a creative challenge. “We asked ourselves: how do we make sure that all the clients we work with can find great opportunities, and continue to make a living and build their career even when certain opportunities are not available to them?” Laura recalls. One unexpected benefit of the disruption was a long-term global integration strategy that took root. “I wanted to organize the company as a global company,” Laura says. The widespread shift to remote communication helped Avalon break down market barriers, and “was oddly a bit of a silver lining for us, because that’s how we operate day to day now.”

With so much being shifted to remote, Laura is now finding that live events are getting a huge boost. “People crave connection. The kind that only happens in a room together.” Though live events don’t scale like screen content, they’re emotionally powerful and financially viable. “The live comedy space has tripled in the last decade,” she notes. “We need to keep paying attention to where creativity thrives and where audiences truly want to be.”

Avalon is intentional about scouting talent everywhere by making sure they’re present in all venues and markets. They don’t just want to rely on existing networks, but also work to build infrastructure globally. “One of my longer term ambitions is to be in a position to do that in markets around the world. So we've sort of got a little bit of a footprint in Australia and New Zealand. Now in Canada. A team in Sweden,” Laura says. “I'd like to expand into other markets where we don't have as much presence, like Latin America and Africa.” A key part of that mission is maintaining a diverse in-house team, because those different life experiences, tastes, and perspectives are better equipped to discover and support a wide range of creative voices. 

Overall, the entertainment business is full of challenges: there’s no sugarcoating it. “But it should also be a joy. Most of us do this because we love it, and the ride needs to be fun,” Laura says. At the same time, she emphasized the importance of excellence: “We have to do everything with excellence. And if we're not doing that, we're not going to win. So there's a whole host of things that I'm focused on to make sure that we do it better, that we learn from our mistakes, and just continue to iterate and grow and try things… I'm really excited about big bets and big swings.”

This leads directly into Laura’s advice for aspiring execs, producers, and creatives: “Resilience… is a huge part of this industry. Just strive for excellence every step of the way.” Also, she says, she often reverts back to three things: “grit, grace and gratitude”. She elaborates, “Stay resilient, stay kind, stay grateful. Give your best, fail better, and don't get disheartened by the setbacks … Stay in the game and enjoy the ride.”