Kat Bautista of NYMA Talent Management on Empowering Filipino Talent

Even before a global pandemic fell upon us, it’s evident how much our lives depend and revolve around the media; and how much power technology and online communities wield over various industries. People rely on these media channels for all the latest trends and updates on — well, what’s happening in the world. And who runs this massive global network? No other than the content creators (vloggers, influencers, social media personalities, Key Opinion Leaders or KOLs).

With the increase of content creators, businesses have turned their attention to these talented individuals and have built new models wherein both parties are able to profit. But being a talent and a businessperson are two entirely different things and that’s where NYMA comes in.

Born from Globe’s 917Ventures’ Kroma Entertainment, NYMA Talent Management recently became independent and acquired by former Head of Talent at Kroma, now COO Kat Bautista and her husband Christian Bautista. Together, they’re elevating the entertainment space with a “tradigital” approach.

Since its establishment, NYMA has signed a remarkable lineup of unique and award-winning talents including renowned food content creator and “Lumpia Queen,” Abi Marquez; actress, singer, and director Kristel Fulgar; Home Buddies founder Frances Cabatuando; and artist and TikTok star, Raco Ruiz. These individuals have made a name for themselves online and are set for an upward trajectory with the guidance and support of Kat and the entire NYMA team.

The Beat Asia chatted with the brilliant COO to talk about how NYMA supports and empowers its talents; what she has in store for the now-independent company, and how she — as a woman leader — cultivates a strong team culture that fosters open communication and collaboration.

Venturing Across Tech, Telco, and Talent

Before she came to be NYMA’s founder, Kat grew up between the Philippines and the US, acquiring her college degree in California where she also spent the last ten years working in Silicon Valley.

Kat’s experiences mostly revolve around tech, having worked with well-known companies such as Google and Apple. At that time, she got exposed to the nature of telecoms with one of the big companies she worked for who had a partnership with American telco giant, AT&T.

She was immediately interested in the business, and when she returned to the Philippines to take care of her mother who suffered from a stroke, she pursued a career in the telco industry and ended up working for the country’s leading full-service telecommunications company, Globe Telecom, where she took on multiple positions including Manager of Mobile Data Services and Head of Strategy and Program Management.

But how did she get into the entertainment and talent management industry?

“During the pandemic, born out of the telecom through the 917Ventures was Kroma Entertainment,” Kat said. Globe’s 917Ventures is the country’s largest corporate venture builder and wholly owned subsidiary that ideates, launches, accelerates, and scales rookie businesses with the potential to grow.

“I led the strategy and business development on that. When we were looking at the structure of Kroma as a whole, we saw that there was a big gap and opportunity for talent, which has always been a passion of mine,” she further explained. “So, I raised my hand, and I asked if I could build out the business, and I became the head of talent for Kroma.”

When asked on how NYMA came to be and why this was the subsidiary she decided to acquire with her husband, Kat replied, “I’ve always dreamt of more for Filipino talent. I love media, I’ve always been a big consumer of it. And I’ve always been in such admiration of how India commoditizes it. Korea has turned it into an export, and Japan as well. Also, seeing how Thailand is getting into that space with commoditizing their dramas. I've always been curious about why we haven't been able to scale in the Philippines. Sure, we have some presence, but it's not as prevalent as some of the other cultures in Southeast Asia.”

“I believe there are so many talented artists in the Philippines, spanning on all fields from music to acting to — now we’re seeing content creation, and I wanted to be a part of that.”

And so, when the business opportunity came up, Kat didn’t hesitate to venture into another "T" in her career and stepped into managing talents.

Empowering Aspiring Filipino Talents

Some might ask what a tech and telco businesswoman know about entertainment or talent management? Kat herself admitted that she never really had “the expertise of the business of it,” but she does understand what it’s like to be a talent in the Philippines having worked behind the camera before, and how her husband also happens to be a singer. This experience gave her the ability to put herself in the shoes of her talents and help them both creatively and from a business and marketing standpoint.

NYMA (pronounced /Nee-ma/), at its core, is a dynamic talent management company and influencer management agency. They make use of a “tradigital” approach in their marketing strategies, which further expands opportunities for their talents and clients.

When asked about how NYMA distinguishes itself from other agencies, Kat confidently explained, “NYMA stands for Now You Must Aspire. When we were building it, the mission was always to do better for Filipino talents, to help them scale, and to help them really reach their dreams. That's why the name is what it is; to keep that mantra in mind that we had to earn our stripes in the industry and to build up who we are, which requires trust from our talents, earning our reputation and our space within the Filipino community and worldwide.”

“I also picked the four-letter word that was easy to say in any language and in any culture, because our goal is eventually to expand,” she added.

In the company’s pursuit to catapult their talents onto the global stage, Kat brought in a team of experts in the entertainment industry such as their current Head of Talent, Karen Tumbali, and Talent Manager, ZL Roncal, who have decades of experience under their belts, and whom Kat consults and works with.

“While I may understand the nature of business and have a desire, I believe that the mesh — the merger between experience and idealism is what's needed for things to succeed. It was super important to me to have a great team around who also understood the belief of what we were trying to do and what we were trying to build.”

One other thing to note about NYMA’s management style is how they do not take more than ten talents, an idea Kat learned from entertainment managers and business giants such as Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind BTS and HYBE labels, and Scooter Braun, the music manager who represented artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

“I think what was at the core after listening to their podcast and their interviews while I was building NYMA and trying to get inspired by them was really laser focus,” she said, referring to how businesses do well and scale more when they are hyper-focused on one direction.

Meanwhile, when asked about their unique approach, Kat explained, “Tra-digital, meaning we look at their strategy on a traditional and a digital standpoint because as a creator, or as an artista (celebrity) today you cannot survive on just being on digital or just being on a traditional platform. The audience today is a multi-screen audience. Their attention is sort of like a prism. It's scattered. So how do we capture you? So, for us it's super important and that requires focus and attention to details.”

If there’s one thing NYMA has gotten down, it’s that they have a good grasp of the anatomy of content creation and social media, which is what made their tradigital approach so effective. This also means that they have to stay on top of current trends. When asked on how they do that, Kat answered, “We endlessly doomscroll. I know it gets a bad rep, but it helps so much. We’re also subscribed to almost every newsletter out there, so we read a lot to understand what’s currently trending. I think it also helps that our team has varied interests, and I think the fact that we have such a young team also helps in keeping what’s up and coming alive.”

“And our talents are so well-versed in the space that they educate us consistently,” she added, noting that content creators are the only masters of their space and that she sees them as “infinite sources of wisdom.”

In addition to this, NYMA also made sure that the talents they picked are based on Filipinos’ points of interest or “passion points” as what Kat described them; cultural nuances that resonated with the Filipino audience. They looked at talents to fill in certain categories such as beauty, music, art, home, food and sustainability.

When it came to keeping their talents inspired, Kat expressed that it’s a group effort between their talents and the team who passionately and relentlessly produce and share content.

“The audience today are incredibly smart. They can pick up when someone is being inauthentic. If the creator falls out of love with what they’re doing, the audience can see that, and the views will match. So, the creator has to be consistently in love with what they’re doing,” she said.

“The second part is, as a management you’re educating and helping them through personal problems; you’re getting through creative hurdles together, and you’re basically acting as a support for to them because as the audience tunes in to watch them, how do you create an environment that makes the rest of their life easy enough to give them the mental fortitude and power to be able to pull out ideas? That’s your job as the manager. How to be that buffer of taking in all of the hits and removing all the noise to allow them to do what they do well.”

A Leader Who Listens

NYMA continues to aspire as it evolved from a business unit into a full-service company. Kat expressed her excitement over having more agility in the business and how being independent allows them to be brand agnostic. She also mentioned how she is now able to infuse her own culture in running the business as well as apply her own leadership style. We talked about how she cultivated good rapport within her team, which is mainly due to her practice of hearing them out.

“When I started stepping into leadership roles, I made a list of things that I didn’t want to do. One of the recurring themes was ‘not listening.’ So, the first thing that I did when building out a team was to listen to things that are being said and not being said. I think when the team knows that you’re accessible, they choose to speak up. Clear communication is the most important thing.”

“We have one mouth and two ears. Listen more than you speak. The nature of entertainment is a lot of bravado, promises, and shiny and flashy things. I think you get a lot further if people actually see you listen,” she further emphasized.

Kat also talked about servant leadership and how her role exists to support more than to command. “Whenever I get on a call, my first question is: ‘Hi, how are you doing? How can I help’? Your job as a leader is to take care of your people first, and make sure that they are whole so they can do their job well. I want to really make NYMA a safe place not just for the talents, but for the people that work here.”

In terms of building a team, Kat stated that the not-so-secret of their success and good team relationship is due to the fact that she acknowledged their skills and abilities from the start and allowed them shine and stand on their own feet.

“I’ve never been afraid to hire people more brilliant than me. I actually look for people that are smarter than me, because I’m looking for people to succeed me,” she said matter-of-factly. “I want to be able to hand the business over to the people who built it with me. And the only way to do that is to hire people who are smarter than you and to acknowledge that.”

Her way of leading the team has definitely inspired its people to do well, leading to consecutive accomplishments in the business. Kat has also been recognized for her efforts, having won The Most Innovative Leader of the Year award at the Asia-Pacific Stevie® Awards last May.

When it came to work-life balance, however, Kat humbly answered that it’s still a work in progress.

“Oh man, I’m still learning if I’m being honest (*laughs*). I don’t have it all figured out just yet. I’m trying to learn to create that balance, but given that it’s so new, it’s my first foray into the entrepreneurial world, this is my life right now. I’m so blessed that I got to do this with my husband and my team who believed in me when I wanted to take this business forward. I think I have to earn my stripes first as an entrepreneur and really take care of the business before I get to enjoy that balance. So, head down, hustling to the ground, enjoying what I’m doing but the balance isn’t quite there yet.”

NYMA is looking to expand their Talent Management arm with plans to add three more talents to their roster and fill up the ten spots. Moreover, they are also expanding their Digital Marketing and Influencer Management arm, which is their B2B service where they aggregate bespoke proposals for clients, from the strategy to the tagline to the influencers.

The agency has also started partnering with international companies and is hoping to expand their services to cater to the needs of their talents and clients. One expansion they’re hoping to incorporate in the future is “styling.” Kat mentioned that a lot of their talents need support in this area and how she has people in her team (whom she calls her ‘business partners') like Pam Ricarte, their Head of Creatives, who is a talented artist and designer. Pam recently designed her look for the Preview Ball last Sept. 6, which turned heads for its unique aesthetic.

In less than three months, NYMA has accomplished a lot as an independent company and it’s only going to get better from here.

When asked about the best part about running the business, Kat happily replied, “I’m so excited to be able to explore my independence. It’s strange after working in corporate for twenty plus years for everything to just go quiet and your decisions are yours, and whenever you lead something and watch it happen, the fruits of your labor go to your team, your talents, and you. It’s so different. I’m not working for somebody; I’m working with people for a shared goal. That shift in perspective has been really abrupt, but also really fascinating for me. I’ve really enjoyed my independence and watching NYMA succeed and benefit and receive great feedback from our clients; and watching the joy on my team and client’s faces knowing that we did it on our own. That, for me, is the best.”

You can follow Kat Bautista here or visit NYMA’s Facebook and Instagram pages to learn more about the company, their talents, and their services.