Founder & CEO, HarbourView Equity Partners

Ep #13: Sherrese Clarke Soares

In episode thirteen, we stop in New York. Dhani Jones speaks with Founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners, Sherrese Clarke Soares, who shares some of her dealmaking stories, insights into the high-stakes world of music catalog sales, and reveals the secret to why content is queen!

HarbourView Equity Partners logo
Industry:
Venture Capital, Private Equity
Advisor:
Sherrese Clarke Soares
So that has allowed us to be very focused. This, again, goes back to your intro of why we think content is queen. We do think that IP over the long duration will hold and grow in value. And that conviction is not wayward. It's not fleeting with the moment or fleeting with what's next in line. We believe that as a strategy and as a firm.
Sherrese Clarke Soares, Founder & CEO, HarbourView Equity Partners

Sherrese Clarke Soares' experience

Sherrese Clarke Soares

Modern Dealmaker & Queen of Content

Sherrese Clarke Soares is a visionary 2-time Founder & CEO having spent over 20 years in corporate finance, capital markets, investment banking, and private equity. Prior to starting HarbourView, Sherrese Clarke Soares founded Tempo Music where she served as CEO and Board Director. At Tempo, Sherrese formed a strategic partnership with Warner Music Group, brought on Providence Equity Partners to back the venture, and delivered an above average IRR for the investment class.

  • Founder & CEO, HarbourView Equity
  • Board Member, Evoqua Water Technologies
  • Member Board of Trustees, Carnegie Hall
  • Founder, CEO & Board Director, Tempo Music
  • Head of Entertainment, Media & Sports Structured Solutions, Morgan Stanley
  • Senior Vice President, CIT Group
  • Assistant Vice President, GE Capital
  • Analyst/Associate, Morgan Stanley
  • M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, B.S. in Finance from Georgetown University

Episode highlights

Finding nuanced solutions to unique problem sets

 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Dhani Jones (00:03):

The Pathfinder podcast is presented to you by Ansarada. Ansarada is the modern deal and virtual data room technology designed to make M&A, capital raising, divestments, restructures, and IPOs as simple as possible.

 

Dhani Jones (00:14):

Since 2005, Ansarada has been trusted in over 24,000 transactions, empowered over one trillion worth of deals. Ansarada is a secure space that includes workflow tools, AI-powered data rooms, built-in question and answer and integration frameworks. It's the data room trusted by modern deal makers. You can start for free today at ansarada.com. You know I like a winning team, so say it with me, ansarada.com for your next winning outcome.

 

Intro (00:44):

Welcome to The Pathfinders, the modern deal maker series, brought to you by Ansarada. Now here's your host, Dhani Jones.

 

Dhani Jones (00:55):

Welcome back, everybody, to The Pathfinders, presented by Ansarada. I'm your host, former NFL player, investor and entrepreneur, Dhani Jones. Today I'm joined by Sherrese Clark Soares. Sherrese is the founder and CEO of HarborView Equity Partners and brings over 20 years of experience leading across corporate finance, capital markets, investment banking, and private equity with the focus in the communications and media entertainment sectors.

 

Dhani Jones (01:17):

She's with us today to share some of her deal making stories, insights into the high stakes world of music catalog sales, and reveal the secret to why content is queen.

 

Dhani Jones (01:31):

Welcome Sherrese. How are you doing?

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (01:32):

I'm good. Thank you. How are you?

 

Dhani Jones (01:34):

I'm excited. I'm elated that you're able to join us today because there's just so much of your experience that I know everybody wants to hear about. And the fact that you played so many different leading roles, right? Morgan Stanley, GE Capital. I mean, before finding first Tempo of music and HarborView Equity, the thing that I always think about or concentrate on is a lot of times the founder's background, childhood. And things that directed you to choose your own career path. Were there specific moments that you felt as though you were going to end up in the place that you are today?

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (02:11):

It's a pretty big question. I'd say the answer to that is yes and no. So the yes answer to that is I grew up in Queens. I'm a Queens girl. I'm the child of two parents who love me dearly. My dad was an entrepreneur locally, a real estate entrepreneur. And so this idea of ownership and entrepreneurship was super important to me growing up. And then I intersected in the creative landscape, my entire life. I am a classic child of the arts who, when people say like, "The DJ saved my life," or, "Music saved their life," like that, that was me in terms of the piano, I was classically trained for a long time. I danced for forever. I ran theater groups in college, always wanting to get as close to arts and culture as I possibly could. Because it just had such a profound impact on me growing up and was my secondary lifeline, if you will, growing up.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (03:18):

So for me, the intersection of business and culture has been a big part of something I've always wanted to understand. My dad even took me to... I forget what the conference's name was in New York. One of these hip hop, the power summits back in the day. I was like seven and went, saw all these people, talking about the business of music really early on and also did things like, I was probably at one of the first years of ABFF for the American Black Film Festival when it was Acapulco, for those people who remember those early days. So just constantly super fascinated with the business of entertainment. I never wanted to be in front of the camera. In fact now, when I do interviews like this, I'm always nervous to do them, because it's not who I am. I'm the behind the scenes person, not the in front of the scenes person. But it's always been a very big fascination to me.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (04:06):

The no answer is I did also have a very practical side to everything I did. So I went to Georgetown Business School. I majored in finance. I worked on Wall Street, specifically wanting to work in the media group when I graduated from Georgetown and then went to business school and specifically wanted to go and work in media segments in the finance profession, but taking somewhat of a traditional road as it relates to understanding these businesses. So as I matriculated through my career, I tell people sometimes that I'm an accidental entrepreneur for a number of reason. So by the time I got senior enough, I made partner at Morgan Stanley. I've got lots of great friends there, grew up there professionally.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (04:48):

When I started thinking about what to do here in this space. And I started tinkering with, in 2015, when I was pregnant with my son. So a lot of things are marked by the birth of my children. When I was pregnant with my son, we started working on this idea around creating investment vehicles for non-correlated products in the entertainment and media space because my dear friend and colleague, Drew Hawkins, was no longer at Morgan Stanley, but he started a global sports and entertainment franchise on the wealth management system. And he kept coming to me with, "Hey, we've got all this flow." And I was just like, "Oh, I got the idea." I'd actually written about it to go in my application to business school about what I wanted to do one day was to create a platform that owned content because of how powerful it is, particularly for people of color and in Black communities, like who we are and what we are known to in the world is what people see and understand.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (05:42):

So I got it, let's go create this thing. So we went off about the business of trying to create something again, but for something for Morgan Stanley. Ultimately, I ended up hearing from a few investors. One of whom I'm still very friendly with today, I'll give him a shout out. I had an offer on the table from a group called Tarsadia Capital, which is a family office here in New York. The principals are really still good friends of mine, but they were like, "Sherrese, we'll do this deal. We'll pay off this bridge. But you got to leave Morgan Stanley to run this. This idea that you have that you're going to run this at Morgan Stanley feels like not the right idea. It's time for you to give to you." I wasn't ready. So I was like, "Oh, I can't do that. How do I abandon the place that I grew up at? That doesn't feel like the right thing for me to do."

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (06:26):

So I waited and went and found other investors and they ultimately said the same thing. And the last one that said that was Providence. And so Providence Equity Partners came in, backed what I had built at Morgan Stanley, paid off this bridge loan that we had put together and then went about the business of starting Tempo. Launched that business, bought most of the assets that they own today were things that I originated or underwrote before I left, but then looked up and was like, I'm building something for someone else.

 

Dhani Jones (06:56):

Let me ask you a question though, while you were building Tempo, was there any moment along the way, you had the investors, you had the people that told you, you got to believe in yourself, you got to step away, you got to do this for you. Did you look around and say, "Well maybe I should because there's not a lot of people that look like me in my organization and for me to have ownership and dominion over a product of which I create and people believe in me, might actually tell the people that I'm working with now, you should value me a little bit more."

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (07:33):

Right. So that happens. So I was starting to get reverse inquiry now because I have basically curated investor relationships across time. One in particular who I'll also give a shout out to that was just really great friends to me or who are allocators, were like, "Sherrese, you can do this. People are looking for you." And I was like, "Well, don't I need a big shop? Don't I need the shingle?" And they were like, "No, you don't need those things." And this was in the summer of 2020. So I hadn't even really been thinking about leaving yet, but that was a pretty eyeopening conversation too. That's our good friends, Jason Howard at Grosvener who is really good at spotting talent, as it relates to managers. They back all the best. I'm so fortunate to even be in their company, kind of gave me that insight and that feedback.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (08:27):

It was kind of the push that I needed. So I looked up in January or sorry, December of 2020 as we started talking about 2021 strategy and decided like, I think it's more risky for me to not bet on myself than it is for me to stay, more risky in the scheme of how much impact can I have, to your point about having your own dominion, how much value and legacy can I create for myself, but also certainly for others as we build an institution that we want people to believe in, particularly as we're trying to build the next generation of an asset management firm. So I concluded to take the leap of faith.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (09:03):

So I left in January of 2021. I had a nine month non-compete. I sat on the sidelines for nine months. They had to pay me to do so. I used that time to basically start to build my building blocks, identify my team, identify partners. And I was luckily to emerge one week to the day after my non-compete with a partnership with Apollo in the right way, one where we own our firm completely. We've got a big capital commitment where we have discretion over and we have the ability to put that money to work, and the ability to really create and build the culture and the team and the firm that we really want to build. And also the scale to compete the way that we want to.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (09:42):

So that has been a really... I feel like every day I wake myself up and I'm pinching myself, because I'm totally living the professional dream. The thing that I always wanted to do. And so that's been a really great blessing in my life. And, again, we're super excited to be doing what we're doing and to your point around, there's not a lot of people that look like me, no. There's certainly not a lot of Black, female CEO, founder led private equity platforms of scale, certainly. And so I take this mantle pretty seriously in that, I think, I want to be a beacon of light for others to think about how they can do it and how they should do it in terms of what they should be building.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (10:25):

But we're very serious investors. We've had an ability to demonstrate that we have a draft record of doing really good work. I exited, as a technical matter, I've created two exits around this asset class, one to Providence, and then now, building a strategy myself. So, we've been able to be able to be pretty successful at what we do. And since October, we've put a lot of money to work and building the strategy bit by bit. That's been great. It's been really fun to be a disciplined investor, but one that really respects the art. We do a lot of science in our world, but the art really forms the science. And so really allowing ourselves to engage with the creative community in a way that we are translators, in a way that we are accessible, in a way that we are fair has been really important to me as we embark upon this path.

 

Dhani Jones (11:21):

Do you find that through your pathways and through some of the people that have supported you along the way, you've obviously seen barriers, you've obviously seen obstacles and you mentioned this word science and I love that. Because it's about figuring out a solution. It's not looking at something that's preventative. It's about solving the equation. So you either can go over it, around it, through it, take it apart. What was some of the science in some of the obstacles that you saw along the way? Because I think about it, as a African American man in the world of finance, as you, as an African American woman in the world of finance, there's a lot of young women and people of color that are looking to get into the financial world and they don't necessarily, not everybody's looking at the world through a scientific lens. Some people might be looking it through, "It's not going to happen." So how do you contemplate and deal with that personally?

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (12:21):

So I think for me, one of the biggest things that has been critical to my life is that I always grew up thinking there was endless possibilities. I don't know why. My parents were really good at creating that space and environment for us in a way that felt really tangible and didn't feel unattainable. And so what we have to, I think, recognize is that the resiliency with which we sit is actually a superpower. So our ability to sit in spaces that weren't naturally designed for who we are, to understand them, to speak a different language, because then a lot of times these are different languages that are being spoken. If you weren't raised, talking in financial literacy or even in transactional literacy, it's like two steps. Understand watching the stock market is one thing and then understanding how to engage in complex transactions is another thing.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (13:22):

So when you think about our ability and agility to live in these spaces, that are designed for us, where this is not our native language, where it's almost like a secondary language, just think about how much of that is a superpower and really tap into that, means that your capacity for what you do is actually much bigger than you think it is. And you may be slower on the uptick because you don't speak the language, but you're probably gotten so much more fundamental infrastructure to actually, once you get the language, to actually see different things.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (13:57):

I think the other thing that I really leaned into as an investor is this idea that I see things that other people don't see. And the reason for that is who I am and where I stand. And so if you're raised in large organizations that, again, aren't necessarily built for you, you've got to cut your own path. Especially for me becoming, I'm a partner at a large scale Wall Street firm. In order to do that, most people have their own products. That product has been assigned to everybody, everybody got their lane. So how do you create your own lane? And for me creating my own lane was around constantly seeing around the corner or taking an angle that people didn't see. So it was a necessity for survival, but in that survival is also lots of opportunity.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (14:43):

And so that was a really big part of what was important to me or what was critical to my success or even, I don't even know that I'm so successful yet. [inaudible 00:14:56] some things, but honestly I feel like I know the things that I'm trying to get to and I'm only 10% of the way there. So I would say critical to the journey that I'm on, have been this ability to see that, here are the confines for which success typically exists. Okay. Get the building blocks, but then how do you create new things? And so innovation has been a big part of who I am and seeing around the corner and taking a very strong point of view on things where I have conviction, but also a thought process around how to go about it.

 

Dhani Jones (15:30):

Yeah. And I would see that that thought process is like you utilizing a periscope to see over the wall, while at the same time you're working your way through the wall. And that's the resilience factor. Being able to spend time and study the landscape, study the landscape while at the same time, creating your plan. And I think that also goes into, not only creating your platform, but also closing deals. And there's a lot of work that goes into it as well. So how does that philosophy flow into your deal making mentality and bringing things into fruition?

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (16:08):

Yeah. I think, listen, part of it is really loving and wanting to understand IP. Because when you love and understand IP, it's actually a really structured asset class. There's a lot of different nuances. There's tons of different waterfalls, every deal looks different. And so from that, that kind of really led me into actually my big credit background. And the combination of those two things is that you're constantly like, "Okay, well here's the problem set." And a problem set needs to have a nuanced solution that's specific and bespoke to what it is that you're looking at, at the time. And so for me, I've always actually been that person. I've always been the person that's like, "Okay, what's the problem? Okay. There's got to be a way to thread a needle." So in deal making that's true too. It's like, "Okay, well let's look at the facts and circumstances that we have, and I'm sure there's a way that you can thread the needle to actually create the opportunity set."

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (17:01):

The other thing I think too, that has been really critical for me is that a hundred percent of zero is zero. And how do you think about increasing the pie and not being so fixated on controlling something to look at it only the way that you see it being fit? So having an ability to be able to think creatively and think outside of the box has been a big focus of mine too. So like, "Let's get there." But I dream big. And so for me, that is, okay, well look, if we want to stay small then yeah, sure. There's maybe only one way to do something. But if we want to think about something in scale with real impact and real high quality returns, then you got to be thinking differently. And so for me, that's a big part of what I'm looking to do.

 

Dhani Jones (17:53):

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Dhani Jones (18:30):

Pretty cool. Right? Check it out at ansarada.com/quote. You know I like a winning team. So say it with me, ansarada.com, for your next winning outcome.

 

Dhani Jones (18:47):

And I'd imagine, you talked a little bit more earlier about the culture of your company. How do you maintain that? We're seeing the world of technology revolutionize the way that we do business. Some people don't even meet up with people in person. Some people have teams that are completely remote. You can essentially be anywhere and still get stuff done. How do you think about your culture and collaboration with your team, your work, as well as your clients and applying that basic factor of resiliency and allowing that periscope to see over the wall so that everybody essentially moves at the same time?

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (19:24):

Yeah, it's a good question. One of the things I'm really excited about doing is building culture. I'm really excited about building this next generation of asset management. One of the things I'm excited about, about private equity is it's a really young industry in comparison to a lot of other industries. Insurance is like a hundred years old or banking is a hundred years old. But private equity is actually young. The oldest firms are just now turning over their founders. The oldest and biggest and most sizeable firms are just now turning over their founders. If they are, some of the founders are still in key seats and operating rooms. So that's a really young business.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (19:58):

In youth, you find innovation. And so what I'm really excited about is this next generation of creating the next generation of an asset management firm. So really be thinking about what do we want the culture to look like? Who do we want to be? What do we want the team to look like? How do we think about really being ready for this next generation of investors, next generation of opportunity sets? And to me, that really means thinking differently about talent around really giving talent the opportunity to have a seat and a voice at the table.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (20:30):

I've got a really great squad of people, all of whom are fantastic. And I can promise you that they probably would tell you, if they were sitting in a big shop, they wouldn't have the level of responsibility that they have. They wouldn't have the ability to have a seat at the table with a real voice on how we shape and think about strategy, but we really do take that stuff seriously. We also really believe that ownership really works. We saw a group of private equity firms coming together, talking about ownership reports, and we're excited for that because we already do that. Everybody in our business, including my assistant participates in the equity ownership of our firm.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (21:02):

So that's a big part of really wanting everybody at the table to think like an owner and to really be engaged in what we're trying to build, which we think is somewhat differentiated. And then lastly, we really have this thought process that there should be many of us sitting at the table. So like, I'm Jamaican by heritage, HarborView is the name of the town that my father grew up in Jamaica. But we have a big saying in Jamaica, "Out of many, one people." And so if you look at our team, we come from many different walks of life, but we are one people. We are one group of people who are, we are here to do the hard work, but to think really differently, to focus on creating differentiated returns. But we are one people together out of many walks of life.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (21:47):

And we think that actually leads us to better outcomes for a variety of different reasons. We don't have a lot of thinking group speak. We have people who have come from different points of view and those different points of view are intersecting in a fairly collaborative and respectful way, but in a way that harnesses the best of the ideas and really pushes them forward. And so this is a big part of what we think makes us special.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (22:09):

So those are the things that I really focus on. One of the things I'm super excited about right now is building culture. Obviously, we're doing great, investments are great. The opportunities that we've invested in to date have been performing exceptionally well, but I really love building culture and really this idea of what is the next generation of a firm like ours look like? We want to be a skilled firm. We don't want to be a pop-up shop. We're doing music royalties now. We love it. We think it's fantastic as an asset class, but we intend to be and will be meaningful to the entertainment and media segment at large. And so that's a big focus for us. So we're thinking about of what our next strategies will be outside of music right now, and working through a few opportunities.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (22:52):

So that's super important. We want to be meaningful, at scale. We see people like Jose Feliciano and Robert Smith and Orlando Bravo as north stars for where we think we can go in how we scale our business. And all these people are big brothers to me in my head. Some of them, I know. Some of them I have, but really looking at how to think about really building, like I said, that next generation firm.

 

Dhani Jones (23:21):

Yeah. Jose Feliciano and Robert Smith, two of the icons in the industry, and yes, they are the north star, but I think that there's a whole constellation of talent that is rising. Right? And I think that's what's so amazing about the universe is that you can have your own place and you can create your own light from your own star. And I think that's what you're doing. And some of this stuff has already started to pay off for you. You mentioned it before with the music catalogs. I don't think anybody was really even thinking about this until all of a sudden these headlines started going off and it's making big news. So why is it such an attractive opportunity and quite frankly, why are so many artists suddenly deciding to, now is the time to sell?

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (24:10):

Listen, one thing is, let's pay homage, transacting in selling catalogs has been around for a while. It just hasn't been as liquid of a market or as active as a market as it is today. It is also, I think, relatively, still a wide open field relative to the actual addressable market that's there. I'd say why it's attractive is music and music consumption is part of the human condition. So it's not this thing that we turn off in the recession and turn on in good times. It's something that we participate in all the time. And a lot of times, as we participate in it, we're not even conscious that we're participating.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (24:51):

For example, I was at a conference a week or two ago, and the band opens up with A Long Walk by Jill Scott, a song that we own in our catalog. I'm like, "This is how it works." We're always engaging with music. Even when we are actively requesting it, or whether it's being passed to us, or you go to Target, or you go to the supermarket or you go to the gym, and you're hearing music in your daily lives, or you're participating in at home exercise and you're participating in, or you're on Roadblocks and my kids are hearing songs that they either. My children do a TikTok to Bills, Bills, Bills.

 

Dhani Jones (25:26):

Love it.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (25:27):

And how would they know these things? And so the point is that, ultimately we're engaging in music as part of the human condition. So it's really and truly non-discretionary, and in a part of our lives. And so it's, from that perspective, non correlated. So it's actually the perfect asset class to me in this current environment. And it creates non correlated, long duration cash yields, if done correctly. We think we have a mouse trap that does it correctly, that treats the asset like what it is, so that we can talk to investors about that pretty efficiently.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (26:00):

But yeah, again, art is such a part of the human condition that I think sometimes people think of it as too frivolous, or it's too fun. It's the kind of like a lot of people's escape. And so they don't always think of it as an asset class or an investment class that can be taken seriously and deliver the types of returns. We disagree with that wholeheartedly and obviously have proven that in a number of different ways.

 

Dhani Jones (26:24):

Well, I would say that I have Despacito going on in the background all the time. And so, I just want to make sure that I'm taking care of you because you own that catalog.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (26:37):

Yeah. We own that. I got a bunch of stuff that we got. We purchased Ray Infidel's catalog, which we announced earlier this last month or what have you. And Dre wrote a bunch of songs for Usher, in his most recent Tiny Desk concert, he performed at least one of the titles that we own.

 

Dhani Jones (26:52):

Wait, wait. And for those that don't know about Tiny Desk, you got to check it out. Everybody's going to know when I do that and where everybody was at seven o'clock.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (27:02):

Yeah, exactly.

 

Dhani Jones (27:03):

But how did you decide to focus on artists outside of pop or even rock genres? A lot of firms are kind of directionally oriented one way, but you see things differently.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (27:17):

Yeah. So it's part of why we think there's great returns here. We are very data focused. And so we let data tell us where to go and not necessarily our aesthetic or our genre preferences individually. And as the data takes us through the opportunity set, we see opportunities that we think are differentiated, where it's other people buy from their own experience. I think the other thing too is we're a diverse team. And so our experience naturally is different. What I listen to, I tell people this all the time and he actually performed at Essence Fest this year. So that was very exciting. Is Marsh Montano and Kess the Band. Who knows that?

 

Dhani Jones (28:00):

Oh, I know Marsh Montano. Don't challenge me. I know what's up. I know what's going on too. I took a dip into your catalog.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (28:08):

Okay. But look, but the point is that in understanding that music is hyper personal too, that there's a lot of opportunities that may live outside of what's fed to us, that people listen to and engage in. And if you look deeply, you can see that they have great characteristics, cashal characteristics, growth characteristics. But a lot of people buy again from the four corners of their experience and they may be more of a homogenous group in one they buy. And so as a consequence, there's nothing bad about that, it just means that they buy from their experience. We buy from ours, which is why we like to have, out of many, one people, we like to have a diversity of what our team looks like, because it's really important for us to make sure that we bring all those perspectives together so that we're not somehow feeling like it's only our four corners of the universe that matter and not remembering that the world is round.

 

Dhani Jones (29:06):

And these deals, they're not small. These are like $100 million deals. Supposedly, I think, Justin Timberlake sold his for about 100 million, I'm just speculating, but the numbers and the yield that you can essentially gain from this is significant. So what has been, as we wind down, what has been the transition in the market and how have you remained reticent and confident and resilient in your efforts towards pursuing this arena with your culture and your team?

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (29:41):

I think one of the big changes that everybody's talking about right now is the rise in rates. So the Fed is anticipating a pretty aggressive, additional step up in rates in the near term. The market has gotten more volatile. There's been more value opportunities in the marketplace overall. And so for us, in terms of being resilient, we're constantly being thoughtful about how we think about opportunities. Because we are a resident of the space and many who are participating in this space are tourists or they are opportunistic in their thought process and their view, it leaves room for us to actually dig into our strategy and really be thoughtful about it and actually find better and better return opportunities as time goes on.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (30:25):

So that has allowed us to be very focused. This, again, goes back to your intro of why we think content is queen. We do think that IP over the long duration will hold and grow in value. And that conviction is not wayward. It's not fleeting with the moment or fleeting with what's next in line. We believe that as a strategy and as a firm.

 

Dhani Jones (30:47):

Yeah. Well a lot of people think, to your point, they say content is king and I'm letting everybody know, no, no, no content is queen and that is Sherrese right there in front of you, talking and explaining to you why she is creating her own building companies and lifting all boats in Harbor. I love our conversation and love all the things that you're talking about. The fact that you brought up Marshall Montano. I learned about him down in Trinidad, so I'm just letting you know. I know how to chip with the best of Them. I know how to do it. I've been to Carnival.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (31:20):

Exactly.

 

Dhani Jones (31:24):

HarborView will, for all those that are listening, establish it's star in the solar system. So as we come to a close, one of the things that we always talk about on The Pathfinders is meals and deals. And so I'd just be curious, when you're closing a deal, when you're coming up on the very end of a transaction and you're bringing everybody together, is there a place that you celebrate your meal with your favorite deal, or is there a tradition? We just call this meals and deals.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (31:55):

We've been so busy that I've

 

Dhani Jones (31:56):

Come on, you got to eat.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (31:59):

... celebrate. We have not. We've been so busy that we have not given ourselves the grace to celebrate. We're closing a deal today as an example. But I will tell you my favorite places to spend time and to toast. We've toasted the launch of the business at Spring Place. We've had great meals at places like Milo's in the city. And we intend to have a really great office kickoff to open our office. Our headquarters will be in Newark, New Jersey, which we're thrilled about. And so we intend to have a really great festive celebration.

 

Dhani Jones (32:35):

Well, hopefully I'm invited. Maybe you'll have some oxtail.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (32:39):

Yes.

 

Dhani Jones (32:39):

Maybe you'll have some fish stew.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (32:42):

We'll have all of the-

 

Dhani Jones (32:42):

I know you're going to have some good food and I know, you do get a break. So when you do eventually get a break, make sure you save a plate for me, because I'd love to join and continue this conversation. I just want to say, thank you so much for you being here.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (32:58):

No. Thank you.

 

Dhani Jones (32:58):

It's just inspiring all the work that you're doing in the culture. I think everybody needs to really hear, again, really, it's about the resiliency. It's about content, it's not king. It is queen. And I'm just excited to have you on The Pathfinders by Ansarada. So thank you, Sherrese, for all of your insights. Thank you for joining us today.

 

Sherrese Clark Soares (33:16):

No. Thank you so much and super excited to be here and look forward to doing more together.

 

Dhani Jones (33:23):

A special thanks again to Sherrese Clark Soares for being with us today. It's really amazing to see the work she's doing in the world of music copyrights and other media assets and learn how HarborView Equity Partners is coming at investing and deal making from a whole new perspective. If you're enjoying The Pathfinders, please make sure to leave a review so more people can find the show. Until next time, I'm Dhani Jones, and this has been The Pathfinders, presented by Ansarada.

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