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Players On the Move

By ELF Staff
July 01, 2022

United Talent Agency (UTA) has named Stefanie Liquori as general counsel and partner amid a growth spurt for the business. Liquori's hire comes amid a period of evolution for UTA. Late last year, it acquired MediaLink, a media and marketing advisory firm. UTA and its partner, Klutch Sports Group, also established a substantial on-the-ground presence in Atlanta. Liquori replaces Michael Sinclair, who had been at UTA for a decade, the last two as general counsel. According to the Bloomberg news service, he was leaving the company. Liquori most recently served as CEO and general counsel of DSG Entertainment Services, the former holding company for the boutique talent agency Deluxe Entertainment Services. At DSG, she led the sales of the company's core businesses to private equity buyers. Liquori spent more than a decade at Deluxe, where she served in various leadership roles, including chief administrative officer. Beverly Hills, CA-based UTA is one of the largest talent agencies in the world, with about 300 agents representing actors, directors, producers, recording artists, writers and other entertainment professionals. Earlier in her career, Liquori served as in-house counsel for Panavision, and as a corporate finance and M&A lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York City. … Live Nation Entertainment has hired Stephanie Lamoureaux to lead its legal operations. Lamoureaux joins Live Nation from Block Inc., formerly Square, where for nearly five years she served as global head of legal operations for the San Francisco-based mobile payments company that owns Square, Cash App and other companies. Los Angeles-based Live Nation is one of the world's largest concert promoters and venue operators. Prior to Block, Lamoureaux worked as legal operations lead at Twitter and spent more than a decade at Gap Inc. At Gap, she started as legal administrator then transitioned to head of legal operations and finance, a position she held for almost a decade. … Six Flags Entertainment Corp., which eliminated its general counsel position in December, has reversed course and appointed Aimee Williams-Ramey as its chief legal officer. She comes to Six Flags from Sabre Corp., a Texas-based travel tech company, where she was general counsel since 2017. Before that, she spent three years at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority rising to regional chief counsel. She was previously a partner/shareholder at Godwin Bowman, a senior attorney at Sales Werbner and an attorney at Baker Botts. When Six Flags sent its general counsel packing in December, it said it was eliminating Laura Doerre's job as part of a "strategic reorganization." Weeks earlier, the company had replaced CEO Michael Spanos who hired Doerre in March 2020 just as the pandemic was taking hold, with board member Selim Bassoul. In a statement to The Dallas Morning News in December, company spokeswoman Sandra Daniels said: "Changes are being made to create an agile culture, expedite faster decision-making and enable empowerment across every position in the organization." In a recent press release, Six Flags did not explain why it was adding a legal chief after dropping the general counsel role several months earlier. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Grand Prairie, TX-based Six Flags is the largest operator of regional theme parks in the world. It owns and operates 27 regional theme parks and waterparks. Twenty-four of them are in the United States, plus two in Mexico and one in Canada. … TiVo Corp. parent company Xperi Holding Corp. is shifting its top lawyer to the CEO seat of the latter's soon-to-be standalone intellectual property business. Paul Davis will move from his chief legal officer and corporate secretary role at Xperi, a Silicon Valley-based entertainment tech company, and take over as CEO of subsidiary Adeia following the completion of its spinoff as a separate business, which is expected to happen later this fall. "Following separation, Adeia will be the leading independent IP licensing business, driven by its pioneering media and semiconductor innovations," Davis said in a prepared statement. Davis will continue to serve as Xperi's chief legal officer during the lead-up to Adeia's spinoff, according to Xperi. The company had not yet named his legal chief successor. Davis joined Xperi in 2011 as associate general counsel and was promoted to GC and corporate secretary in 2013. The company completed a $3 billion merger with TiVo in 2020. Xperi's other brands include IMAX Enhanced for home entertainment and HD Radio and DTS for in-vehicle infotainment. Earlier in his career, Davis worked as an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions, corporate securities and corporate governance matters. … Montreal-based Mistplay, a play-and-earn and game discovery platform for mobile games, has appointed Deirdre Sheridan as general counsel and chief privacy officer, following a recent majority investment from New York-based private equity firm GrowthCurve Capital. Sheridan brings to Mistplay significant experience in the areas of corporate compliance, global privacy and cybersecurity laws, technology and commercial transactions, and mergers and acquisitions. She previously served as vice president and counsel of privacy, data governance and cybersecurity at the global sports and entertainment company Endeavor. Prior to Endeavor, she served as director, senior counsel and privacy officer at Avon, a leading e-commerce and direct selling beauty company. Before transitioning in-house, she was an attorney at Schoeman Updike Kaufman & Stern, Dorsey & Whitney and Hughes Hubbard & Reed. Sheridan's hire at Mistplay is one of seven new appointments to further accelerate the company's next phase of growth. … Willkie Farr & Gallagher announced the addition of Steven E. Hurdle Jr. as a partner in the law firm's Los Angeles office. Hurdle was previously a partner and deputy chair of the capital markets and corporate department at Loeb & Loeb. He leads business combinations, equity financings and complex joint ventures for clients across industries, with a focus on entertainment companies, investors and entertainers in business formation, fundraising, investing and transactions. … Blank Rome has added David Moreno Jr. as a partner in the firm's commercial litigation practice group and as a member of the firm's sports law team. Prior to joining, he was a partner at Brown Rudnick.

 

— Phillip Bantz, Hugo Guzman, Patricia Kane, Trudie Knockless and Victoria Pfefferle-Gillot contributed to this report.

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