A risky career for show biz clients

The Oscars may be over for this year, but Danielle Prunier gets to work with some Academy Award winners all year round. 

That’s part of her job as a managing director at Los Angeles-based Jones Zafari Group, a branch of Merrill. While she’s not able to name-drop any A-listers among her clients, she says working in the niche has been exciting and notes that many people in the entertainment industry are socially conscious.

“We do a lot of socially responsible investing, they want to make sure they’re not investing in tobacco, firearms and oil,” Prunier says. “It’s great to be able to incorporate that type of personal philosophy and value systems to investing, and I think it helps the clients feel good that they’re putting money into things that are positive for the future.”

Prunier has managed to build the largest entertainment practice at Merrill Lynch and recently ranked No. 14 on Forbes/SHOOK Top Women Wealth Advisors Best-In-State for the Southern California region.

Her client list ranges from writers, directors, and actors, to producers, show runners, and business managers. Prunier says her focus is working with creative professionals who are really fixated on their careers and don’t have a lot of time to focus on their investment plan.

After all, working in the entertainment industry is a tough gig for many of her clients. Artists strive to create art, and sometimes that doesn’t pay, or at least doesn’t pay consistently. Part of Prunier’s financial planning deals with ensuring those who work in the arts have a stable income.

“I see time and time again that once you’ve been making over $1 million for six years, you’re fired from that studio because by that time, your boss has been replaced, and they clean house and they look at whoever’s making over a million, and you got to go somewhere else,” Prunier explains. “For the executives, it’s being mindful of how much you’re making because you’re going to get on the radar and you’re going to get let go at some point.

“For the actors, it’s about saving more than a normal doctor or lawyer would because we don’t know if the show’s going to get picked up,” she added. “We’ve gone from 24 episodes to 12 to seven. I tell them you got to save first, and then build your lifestyle after you have saved for the various goals that you have. And this goes across the entire industry, no matter what role you have.”

Just as films and TV shows tell a story, Prunier also develops and communicates a story in chapters to her clients about how to accumulate and grow their wealth, so that they can pick and choose the right projects in their careers, which then results in longevity in the industry.

 “And I think that’s the key,” she says. “I’ve always approached every relationship in the entertainment industry where the risk is really in their careers and the portfolio comes third in the conversation.”

Part of the conversation is also making sure her clients have enough money saved in their checking and savings accounts so they don’t have to worry about the next writer’s strike or actor’s strike, Prunier said.

“I make all of our clients save first, and then establish their lifestyle second and that’s what makes somebody in the entertainment industry have a lot of longevity and confidence in their career,” she says. “Because they know they have the safety nets in place, we can collaborate [with their agent or manager] so that they aren’t taking projects that are going to disrupt the trajectory of growing in the industry.”

Prunier has her father, who was a doctor in New York City, to thank for her love of financial advice. He provided free medical care every Thursday in New York, Prunier says, because he felt everybody was entitled to free health care if they couldn’t afford it themselves.

“When I started at Merrill, I decided I was never going to have a minimum, I was going to provide free advice, and that I was going to take care of the whole family, and I started out in the health care industry pursuing that niche,” she said.

Prunier found it difficult to get through to the doctors because of the office managers but coincidentally, ended up meeting the assistants to agents. That’s when she spent a lot of time networking through the agencies, where the agents led her to business managers and business managers talking about the lawyers they worked for and their clients.

“I realized that I had to create a team of centers of influence to help me work my way and earn credibility and respect in the entertainment industry,” she says, noting that it was a three-way relationship: “You needed the agent to like you, the lawyer to endorse you and the business manager to trust you, to give you the opportunity to meet with the client to propose an investment philosophy and build a relationship with that client.”

Prunier said that she’s not anyone’s friend, but at the end of the day, just a paid employee. While some of her clients may be famous Hollywood stars, she doesn’t treat them any differently than other people she works with.

“The client’s needs have to come first,” she says. “It’s always leading with the needs of the client, and really getting to know what keeps them up at night and working on a plan that is continually evolving is the way to go.”

Name: Danielle Prunier
Position: Managing director and private wealth manager
Company: Jones Zafari Group, part of Merrill Private Wealth Management
Founded: 1995
Firm AUM: Approximately $25 billion

Related Topics: entertainers, Merrill Lynch, show business