Barry Clarke ’08 is in his sixth year at Authentic Brands Group, the world’s largest sports and entertainment licensing company. As vice president of business development, Clarke pinpoints strategic brand partnerships, endorsements, collaborations, and licensing deals for Authentic’s impressive roster of entertainment intellectual property (IP), which includes living legends Shaquille O’Neal, David Beckham, and Allen Iverson, as well as the estates of Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley, among others.

      “Authentic has a unique model, which is essentially agents and managers coming together under one roof,” Clarke shares of the company, which has over 50 brands in its portfolio. “It means that we’re partnered with our living legends on everything they do, in perpetuity. It’s not as volatile as an agency business.”

      Before joining Authentic, Clarke—who is based in Los Angeles—worked as an executive in brand consulting at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). In 2016, while at CAA, they partnered their Oreo client with Shaquille O’Neal for a commercial campaign, which introduced Clarke to O’Neal’s agent, Colin Smeeton. Fast forward to 2019, Smeeton joined Authentic to lead business development for the company’s entertainment IP portfolio—including O’Neal, who had been an Authentic shareholder for several years at that point—and Smeeton recruited Clarke to come on board with him.

      “Colin was looking for people with a brand consulting background who were interested in moving to the other side of the table to do deals with brands for Authentic’s portfolio,” Clarke explains. “It was the perfect pivot for me, as that was the kind of work I’d always wanted to do.”

      Entertainment is one half of the business, and the other half is lifestyle. “We’re trying to replicate that lifestyle half of the model as much as we can on the entertainment side when it comes to our licensing strategy,” Clarke says. For example, Authentic helped O’Neal create his own line of gummy candies, called Shaq-A-Licious, as well as his own line of furniture for the company Rooms To Go.

      “A third part of our strategy is to identify collaborations for smaller-type capsules,” Clarke says. “My job is to find the deals and execute those deals alongside my brand and legal teams. Then the brand team brings them to life.”

      As for representing the estates of past icons, Clarke and his team work diligently to help honor those legacies and keep them alive. Clarke recently closed a deal for an ad campaign with Muhammad Ali’s estate and Lucid Motors, and with Elvis Presley’s estate and Hilton Hotels.

      “I love being able to think creatively on behalf of brands and icons that I’ve always cared about,” says Clarke. “I also get excited to work with talent on building their business so that they begin to see themselves as brands earlier on in their career.”

      He says that it can be challenging to work with legacy brands, as it’s not always easy to keep them skewing to a younger audience. Juicy Couture, for example, is a name in Authentic’s portfolio with a particularly nostalgic image, in addition to Roxy, Reebok, and Nautica. “We’re continuing to reeducate audiences on our brands by reintroducing them to pop culture through partnership,” Clarke says. “We always want to make sure that our brands maintain cultural relevance.”