Brent Montgomery is the CEO of Wheelhouse Group, a family office where he creates entertainment content and a venture capital fund that invests in businesses to amplify brands around talent. Brent is a media producer and operator whose first hit was Pawn Stars at his first production company, Leftfield Pictures. He later oversaw a host of reality television hits, including HGTV’s Fixer Upper, Netflix’s Queer Eye, A&E’s Duck Dynasty, and Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New Jersey, while running ITV America after he sold Leftfield to ITV. Our conversation covers Brent’s childhood entrepreneurial efforts, creation of Pawn Stars, vertically integrating and expanding Leftfield’s business, and the sale to ITV. We turn to the flywheel behind Wheelhouse, monetizing talent and intellectual property across production, marketing, merchandising, and events, its partnering with leading investors, and a few investment examples along the way. Learn More  Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn  Subscribe to the mailing list  Access Transcript with Premium Membership  Show Notes (3:16) Brent’s background (8:22) Reality TV  (9:47) Starting and operating a business  (18:13) Investing in content at Wheelhouse  (24:23) Team structure  (26:59) Favorite types of investments  (32:27) Insider’s perspective (34:30) Thoughts on TikTok and Snapchat  (36:35) Identifying talent and monetizing brands (39:56) Importance of investment arm  (42:47) Trends in the world of content  (45:52) Biggest risks  (46:30) Closing questions 

Sarah Samuels is the Head of Investment Manager Research at NEPC where she oversees teams across public equities, credit, hedge funds, and private markets for the $1.5 trillion investment advisory juggernaut. Prior to joining NEPC three years ago, Sarah worked at the senior level of both a top notch endowment and a public pension fund. She sought to bring the best of both worlds to her role at NEPC. Our conversation covers Sarah’s early career investing, time in the allocator seat at Mass PRIM and Wellesley College, and decision to join NEPC. We discuss her key investment themes, investment framework blending qualitative and quantitative analysis, second-level thinking, CIO mindset, alignment of interest, private equity allocations, and investment committees. We close discussing Sarah’s work on DE&I and her involvement in Girls Who Invest.   Learn More  Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn  Subscribe to the mailing list  Access Transcript with Premium Membership