Cov Conversations – Chris Nathanial
Chris Nathanial was proclaimed before the meeting as ‘One of the most influential black people of all time’, which I have my reservations about due to MLK, Obama and Mandela probably pipping him to the top spot, but aside from that, the meeting promised to be a good inside look into the world of managing celebrities. Chris is CEO of the NVA Entertainment company, a sports managment group, and as such works with the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Robinho and many players in the Premiership.
Mr Nathanial started the talk about how he came to be CEO, and described how he started in the music business managing Jordan/Katie Price amongst other lesser known people, and eventually turned to football management due to a higher interest in that department. He strongly made the point that he is not just a football agent, and told us that he ‘wanted to do other things’ in the ‘bespoke management company NVA’, to which he sings a lot of praise for.
‘NVA deals with a small amount of clients and this allows us to give dedicated personal service’ he claims, something that companies with large client bases simply cannot do. His ‘multifuctional, out of the box’ company is unique and gives a service other companies are not able to do, and this, he believes, is why he and the NVA are so successful in the modern world. He summed this up in a golden quote that I saw almost everyone writing down word for word; ‘You’ve got to be entrepreneurial and have to try tocreate something yourself. It’s about focus, knowing what you want and focusing on it. Never sit down and wait for an opportunity to come to you, you have to go out there and get it.’
He also spoke about how ‘honesty is the best policy’ and ‘holding your head high’ when asked about celebrity scandals, something seen commonly in footballers careers, which I found to be interesting due to this question having journalistic and media interest. While I have no interest in football or ever pursuing his kind of career, I did enjoy the conversation and left knowing I had learned something new.
