Amy Retzinger Leaving Verve After 11 Years
EXCLUSIVE: Veteran TV lit agent Amy Retzinger is departing Verve where she has been a partner for more than 11 years. She just confirmed her exit in a company email with the subject “New Adventures…”
In it, Retzinger revealed that she is leaving agenting and plans to focus her efforts on a plastics reclamation startup, acting on her passion about eliminating single-use plastics. She also may pursue career opportunities in hospitality, I hear. This coming summer, Retzinger and her family will be moving to Portugal where their children have been enrolled in school for next fall.
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Retzinger was the first agent outside Verve’s founding trio of Bryan Besser, Adam Levine, and Bill Weinstein to join the partnership two years after the agency was launched. She added TV lit experience to Verve, whose founding partners all hailed from the feature side of lit representation, and spearheaded the agency’s television strategy. (Verve has since continued to expand and also added talent and unscripted to its areas of representation.)
Throughout her tenure, Retzinger has championed female directors in their attempts to break the glass ceiling, including Hanelle Culpepper who made history as the first African-American woman to helm a Star Trek pilot episode in the franchise’s 50-year history. In addition to Culpepper, Retzinger’s client list has included Tamra Davis, Rob Hardy, Tanya Wexler, Oscar nominee Meg LeFauve, Tricia Brock, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Sarah Watson and Howard Deutch.
“I am honored to have been a part of creating this incredible company and grateful for all I have learned throughout these last eleven years. But, above all, I am thankful for having learned from everyone who had the vision to get on the bus with us, and I leave confident that Verve is in great hands for the future,” Retzinger said in her farewell email. (You can read it in full below.)
Retzinger joined Verve from Gersh where she had spent a decade as a senior member of the agency’s TV literary department, representing writers and directors on such series as Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, and The Good Wife.
Here is her note:
To my Verve family,
It is with mixed emotions that I share with you that I am leaving Verve to embark on a
new adventure. I am honored to have been a part of creating this incredible company and
grateful for all I have learned throughout these last eleven years. But, above all, I am thankful
for having learned from everyone who had the vision to get on the bus with us, and I leave
confident that Verve is in great hands for the future.
As many of you know, I am passionate about eliminating single-use plastics (there’s a
reason Verve doesn’t have plastic water bottles!), so I will be shifting my energy into a plastics
reclamation startup. And there’s a method behind the madness of our children attending an International School,
it’s been part of our long-term plan to live in Europe. This is the right moment for our family to execute
this plan to give the kids a different perspective on the world. So if you find yourself in Portugal
or the south of France, please come visit!
Best,
Amy
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