Women of Influence by SheSpeaks
Join us each week on the Women of Influence podcast, hosted by Aliza Freud and presented by SheSpeaks. Each week, Aliza sits down with trailblazing women from various fields—business leaders, social media influencers, authors, speakers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders—who are using their platforms to create meaningful impact. Discover how these women harness their influence to inspire, motivate, and drive change, and gain actionable insights you can apply to your own life!
Women of Influence by SheSpeaks
Changing the Game: The Power of Investing in Women
When Thayer Lavielle joined Wasserman, she recognized an opportunity to drive change from within one of the world’s leading sports and entertainment agencies. What began as a conversation about how to better support women across industries became The Collective—a global initiative dedicated to advancing the power of women through data, strategy, and storytelling.
As Managing Director, Thayer has helped transform how brands and organizations view women’s impact as consumers, fans, and leaders. In this episode, she discusses the evolution of women’s sports, the cultural moments fueling its momentum, and why authentic influence starts with service and purpose.
Episode Highlights
- The inspiration behind The Collective and how it’s elevating women across sports, music, and entertainment
- Research-driven insights revealing the true scale of women’s fandom and purchasing power
- Key cultural milestones that have shifted public perception of women’s sports
- The challenges and rewards of building a new brand within a global agency
- Lessons from Thayer’s early career in journalism and beauty that shaped her leadership approach
- What influence really means and how it’s best expressed through service and authenticity
Thayer’s perspective offers a thoughtful look at how advocacy, business, and storytelling can come together to create lasting impact for women everywhere.
Links and Resources
Connect with Thayer Lavielle on LinkedIn
Connect with Wasserman on LinkedIn
Learn more about The Collective
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I would actually argue that it's not that women all of a sudden appeared on the scene. It's that more women were given the stage to appear on the scene. They've always been there. But now all of a sudden it's really become cool to say, oh, I know this hockey player or I know this softball player. And that's what a gift.
SPEAKER_01:Today's episode is one that I'm very excited to share with you because if you are like me and years ago, you watched the movie Jerry Maguire and were fascinated by sports talent agents, right? Just the people who are agents to top elite athletes, then this episode I think is gonna be up your alley. We have on Thayer Lavielle. Thayer is a managing director at Wasterman and the leader of the collective. If you're not familiar with Westerman, they're one of the world's largest sports, music, and entertainment agencies. They represent talent across sports, music, entertainment. And the collective in particular, which is what Thayer is leading, is this unbelievably exciting project where they are building the case study for women, or the business case, I should say, for women as athletes, musicians, and entertainers, and then the audiences that are interested and the fans that go along with that. We talked today about what that means and how Sayer and her team are helping to really show the power of women as athletes and also their fans. We talk about why women as audiences, as fans, are so important. And when you really look at the numbers in terms of how much women have the ability to spend, it is a no-brainer for why companies should be investing. And we talk about the way that Thayer and her team are really using research and insights and their campaigns that they're running to help companies and leaders in those companies understand the power of women as fans, consumers, and cultural drivers. In this conversation, we talk about what has propelled women's sports into the spotlight, how athletes are building deeper fan connections than ever before, how social media plays a role in that, and why true influence is really rooted in service and impact. So, with that, I'm gonna let you hear my terrific conversation with Thayer. Here we go.
SPEAKER_00:Thayer, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_01:It's great to meet you two. And I, as we were saying before we just started recording, I can't believe we haven't met already just because of the passion and the focus that you have for the women's market. Let's get into what is the collective which you are running.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you. The collective is really Wasserman's, which is a global sports entertainment agency. It's our focus on how to really push and advance the power of women by driving business rationale. So, like, how do you actually do that? We sit there across our representation business where we represent athletes, artists, entertainers, broadcasters, coaches, and we think across our brands and properties division and our kind of marketing services division. We wanted to look across and find out how do we leverage the best of all of these things to just make the world a better place through all of the assets that we have. This was about seven years ago when we've really first started leaning into it. And about a little over six years ago, we launched it. And I was, you know, engaged in the conversation to begin with. And I can't remember if I was voluntoled or I think I volunteered to just, you know, let me go help sort this out. And there were several of us talking about this and like how there was just opportunity to really lean in and do more for women across as executives, athletes. At that point, we were only athletes, so we were a sports agency at the time for fans and consumers, most importantly, to our earlier conversation before we started to record on the transfer of wealth and really thinking about what does she want as a fan and as a consumer and how do we really understand her? Because if we can understand her, then we can make the world a better place using all of the research and insights, using all of the tools that we have or can develop. And so the collective really aims to serve the broader industry to that end. So, how can we ensure that every executive that's out there with a budget can sit there and make a rational case for why to invest in women, whether they're fans, whether they're consumers, whether they're women's sports, whether they're women in music, whatever that is. And so that's the reason we get to come to work every day, which is a privilege, candidly.
SPEAKER_01:It's unbelievable to me how misunderstood the women's market is. So, for example, because Wasserman has its roots as sports agents and really understands that like very well, the sports arena. Do women watch sports?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. We're watching a lot of sports. In fact, we did a study last year around global fandom of women who are fans of sport, not just women's sport, but fans of every sport. And 72% of us around the world, out of 10 countries, 35,000 respondents said we are actually avid fans of sport, not just fans, but avid. And one in four of those feel like sports is one of the most important things in their life. So this is why we exist is that we are controlling 85% of purchasing decisions. We're going to own 75% of discretionary wealth around the world. We are, you know, enormous sports fans, enormous music fans, enormously passionate about brands that are aligned with those athletes and artists that we follow. And we are also avidly and passionately aligned with brands that actually stand up for making the world a better place. And so when those things converge on the kind of industries of sport and music and entertainment, it's a really fun place to be a part of as we're trying to build more and more research insights, campaigns, strategies, you know, whatever everybody needs to go kind of tip them over into investing. Right.
SPEAKER_01:So you've said you've been working in the space in the collective in around six or seven years. Yeah. What has changed in that time, or were there some inflection points? Whether it's, you know, maybe the fact the headlines that the women's soccer team made when they were able to get their pay, were there some inflection points that you observed?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, totally. Too many to count candidly. What's been really fun to see is since we launched the collective. And by the way, Wasserman has been representing women athletes since 2002 or 2003. So we have been at this for a long time, long before it was cool or the thing to do. And so when we think about those inflection points, many of them have come in the last five years. That might be anything from during the pandemic where everybody is kind of hunkered down. All of a sudden we're all staring at our phones all the time and understanding, like, hey, how does you know April Ross keep fit for her volleyball career? How does this Olympian do X, Y, and Z? What does that person eat for breakfast? And then all of a sudden you're leaning in to see, well, are these women any playing their game? And lo and behold, they're actually, it's really competitive and fun to watch. And now we're all watching them play in a bubble or a wobble, as the WNBA called it. And oh my gosh, they're super fun to watch. And then they're also coming out with social justice messages and messages of equality and fairness, which they still are doing within the W. And so there's these inflection points in professional sports. And then there are these inflection points, even just recently, where the Lioness has just won the Euros again, to see sold-out stadiums across all of Switzerland to really having this moment within the UK market in particular around the power of women athletes and what that means. Now, there's also things like Sedona Prince came out with, I can't remember the year, maybe 2022, a video around that kind of showcased the fact that at the NCAA March Madness, the women's gym was literally a small like hotel room weight rack, and the men's was like an entire gym filled with different weight racks and stuff, much more serious kind of setup. And so that led to an enormous amount of equalizing on the college level, which then turned into more people leaning in to say, Oh, hold on, these women cannot play ball. And that led to an incredible feature around Caitlin Clark, who is arguably one of the best players ever to play at her young age and so really fun to watch and really all of a sudden turned on a whole new fan base. And then when these casual fans start coming in and they say, Oh, wow, these women can actually play soccer, basketball, softball, lacrosse, whatever it is, it becomes a really different conversation for us as business people trying to get people to engage for them because they're watching it on Saturday or Sunday all of a sudden. They're not just like, what are you talking about? Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:Well, right. And I'm glad you brought up Caitlin Clark because I think she's a great example of how these female athletes are becoming part of the popular culture in a way that only previously male athletes have really been. And it's this memento and the fact that you have so many people that Caitlin Clark is part now of a very broad conversation going on in this country in terms of how she plays and what's going on in the sport. So ultimately, if they see that people are engaged in this sport, they're actually talking about these athletes. That I think is also a pretty compelling business proposition for them.
SPEAKER_00:Not only compelling, but in the world of women's sports in the past five years, it has come to light. We did a study with RBC actually that shed the light on the fact that men make 21 times more than women athletes on the field of play across a myriad of sports, from golf to tennis to basketball, et cetera, soccer. 21 times. Okay, well, to be expected, right? But that's really frustrating when you are toiling away trying to play professional soccer or basketball or whatever, and you are trying just as hard and putting in just as much time and playing just as hard, and all of a sudden that's the discrepancy. Now, these are businesses. We're not saying that they should be paid equally. What we are saying is we'd like to restructure how some of this is looking in terms of some of the deal making across the different leagues to be able to give women athletes a bit more of the revenue because ultimately they then have to go make 82% of their income off the field of play. And that is where they really dive into social media and where they have started to build their audiences and become closer. So in that report, it actually turns out that women athletes are two times as engaging than their male counterparts because they have to go deeper. They have to build this loyalty with their fans that men athletes don't necessarily have to do. And I would I would actually argue that it's not that women all of a sudden appeared on the scene. It's that more women were given the stage to appear on the scene. They've always been there. But now all of a sudden it's really become cool to say, oh, I know this hockey player or I know this softball player, and that's what a gift.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So if you think about this momentum that women's sports are really gaining, what do you think is really driving the cultural shift?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I think it's a lot of things. I think it's these cultural moments where it's the Euros, it's the Olympics, it's Final Four, it's all stars, it's these kind of heat moments, which are super fun. It's star power. These, you know, all of a sudden we're paying more attention to the various stars of any given sport. And by the way, globally, it is completely varied. So who's really shining in Indian Premier League cricket is very different than obviously who's shining lioness's perspective or red roses or to anybody here. I think it's also that there is really this influx of major investment coming into women's sports from venture capital to private equity, new ownership, new valuations rising, which is very exciting. So that kind of brings up a lot of, you know, a lot of interest. And then when that happens, more and more brands say, hold on, what's going on here that these billionaires are starting to put their money in? They seem to be pretty adept at making money because they're billionaires. So how can we actually understand what if we have a role to support within this space? And then I think a lot of the platforms like the to view it is becoming more accessible. The there's not a lot of gatekeepers anymore because you're able to watch these sports and look at these athletes in all over the place. And so that becomes a the barriers of entry are just lessened, which makes the fans demand more accessibility. So I think it's a myriad of factors. I don't think it's one particular thing.
SPEAKER_01:So if you were thinking about you have built a brand within Wasserman. So if people are not familiar with Wasserman, pretty well known in terms of in terms of the background, the sports agents and representing talent. Lots of people in the marketing advertising industry are aware, are familiar with Wasserman, but you're building a brand within a brand. So can you talk a little bit about what that's like? And there's probably hard parts about that and easier things about it, but talk a little bit about what that's like.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thanks. I've been here for 14 years, which to me seems like a credible lifetime to say that, but it has gone by so quickly because we as a company have grown largely by acquisition. And so when you're growing largely by acquisition, the growth comes in, you know, fits and spurts that are small bites or big bites to, and I've worked on different areas of that business. So I've worked in our brands and properties division where I kind of came up uh working on things like American Express, which I think you you had worked at before, and have worked in our corporate office where I helped do a lot of business development, special projects, opened our office in in Shanghai. And then I moved over to be the COO of several of our talent divisions. And so at the time it was very rare to have somebody who had worked across the business like that when we started the collective. And it felt like a bit of a an exercise or a project of like, hey, how could we even think about creating something that would be additive to all of our business? And then as soon as we were out of the gate, it kind of took off. People were like leaning in, calling, what's going on? What is this? Tell us more about this, which is exciting. And then so it was like, hold on, I'll be right back. Let's go figure this out. And then it was really building a business. And the cool part about this has been how we're structured is very, you know, simple in that there's a core team of us that functions throughout a lot of the company. So we work very much in line with all of the other divisions, leaving the divisions to do a lot of the work that comes in or the help on the advocacy pieces of it. So it's been, it's been, it's an entrepreneurial company within Wasserman, very much so. And it's been interesting to be able to build a business within the business. And to say that we're one of, if not the only, really organic growth mechanism outside of our innovations and ventures. It's been incredibly exciting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it also helps to almost create a model for other. I mean, the focus on women is huge and so important. This is something that could be replicated for other businesses within the company.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And that's what we do. And not only businesses, but geographies. So it is, you know, I wouldn't say it's formulaic because it's incredibly complex in many ways. But what we do do is we really think about if we are to launch this exact thing, but in a different region now, how does that look and how does that operate and how does that shift? Now, the interest, the most interesting part about this, though, is that as we've been doing this, the rest of Wasserman has grown significantly. We've acquired a music agency, we've, or several, we've acquired, you know, we're now entering in in the entertainment space. We have, you know, other areas of business. We're grow growing, you know, services left and right. And so it becomes interesting to figure out how to keep up with that at the same time. You know, because it's not an immediate, like, oh, well, if you're doing this, then we're just gonna, you know, scale like that. So it's a never-ending kaleidoscope of fun things to work on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. Let's take a step back and talk a little bit about how you got to this point. I know you talked about your 13 years, 14 years at Wasserman. Before that, though, you spent a lot of time in the cosmetics and the beauty industry. How was that transition and what is applicable from what you learned in the beauty industry to what you started doing in the sports arena?
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for asking that because I think actually people should look at their careers as what you're learning, not what you're doing. And I came out of college moving to Paris only because I had majored in French and didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. So I was like, let me go see how long I can last there. And so I did. And I ended up working for ABC News over there as an basically as an intern and then got kind of paid as like a little helper to do things around the Bureau. And then got eventually and offered a job back in New York City and really learned how to hustle and learned how to move quickly and learned how to hit deadlines because that's, you know, news goes on at 6:30, whether you're ready or not, and learned how to operate in an office and on a team. And, you know, breaking news is wildly exciting to also be a part of when you're young and to see the kind of managed chaos of it all. And then after a while, I went from World News Tonight to Good Morning America, and and there were lots of really fun, fun, great moments within those jobs. And I learned how to tie things together. You know, I remember one of my first nights as being the overnight booker is what they call the position where everybody goes home for Good Morning America on the day side, and I come in and I'm basically like, here's the show. I need to make sure nothing crazy happens overnight. Also, maybe have to book some of the show. And some of the coolest stories I got to work on and the teams that I got to work with because of breaking news and because of some of the most interesting things happen. So I learned how to hustle and I learned how to communicate and how to understand what was urgent. And then going forward from there, I went into PR where I that's where I really learned to storytell was like, how do you actually create stories and take different disparate information and make things out of that? I like to share the story about where I was working for a brand and they wanted to, they wanted me to get PR on something that seemed relatively benign, of like, you know, it had to do with a product that was launching with a with rubber. And I was like, oh my gosh, how is this? This is very hard. How are we gonna do this? And there was no 24-hour news cycle. It was definitely pre-internet to date myself. And I ultimately just had to go figure out how to create a trend out of rubber to go get it done. And that's what you, you know, it was like, how do I actually start to plot these things and how do I tell a story? And so that when I learn that and when I'm able to then take that into my next jobs, which by the way, everybody needs to learn. You need to learn how to sell yourself for a job or sell yourself for a raise or sell yourself to get the first date or sell yourself for the sell season tickets. I don't know. It's such an important tool. And so when I think about, you know, the jobs that I've had from there to L'Oreal, where I worked for seven years, selling a sponsorship with Dale Earnhardt Jr. to our senior leadership that was definitely not gonna make money on paper and ended up blowing the doors off in terms of a nostalgia play that we that we did with him to, you know, moving down to to Charlotte to work for Dale Jr. eventually and then meeting Wasserman. So it's been it's been a very circuitous route to the chair I sit today, but it's been really fun. I love that.
SPEAKER_01:And I want to say too that I'm guessing you also learned quite a bit about storytelling early in career as a producer because I know you said you were at ABC. I actually also started as an intern in ABC when I was in college. And I did back then, again, dating myself. I was on the live with Regis and Kathy Lee show. And I remember watching the producers, and I was an intern, but watching the producers and realizing that what they were really good at was telling a story. And that was one of the most interesting insights I had from what a producer does, like just from being next to them watching what they get to do day to day. So I'm sure that also is part of your understanding of, and it just becomes second nature.
SPEAKER_00:It's also very nuanced, even to this day. Like you think about, you know, World News Tonight, and they have to, you know, that's in a studio. So that anchor knows that he or she at the time was projecting out to an audience of Americans that may have a high school diploma or may have a PhD, right? You have to be able to write to that audience. Or you take things today in this virtual world where you might be presenting to a virtual crowd and people in the room, and you have to be able to land both of those. You have to be able to land like the person in Spain that might not really be that connected to you versus just getting the hot laugh in the room. Audience and how you storytell is the number one thing to really understand who are they and what do you want them to do when this is over? What do you want them to walk away with?
SPEAKER_01:I just want to ask you a question about that. In that example where you have this very diverse set of people who might be watching, listening, whatever the case may be, do you have like a design target in terms of the storytelling? Do you say, okay, I know that I have this very wide range of people who are very different, who might be listening or watching this. I am targeting like this right here, this person or this type of person with my message.
SPEAKER_00:Now, for me, I don't look at it as people. I look at it as what do I want them to do? Even if you're going into sell a brand on a service, you might have very you might have a chief of staff to an assistant to the CMO to the whatever. So very different people, right? And ultimately what you want is to think through what do I need to do to weave a story through that's going to make them all move in the direction I want them to move in.
SPEAKER_01:So if you were thinking about myths maybe of working in sports or marketing that you wish more women knew was not true, what would that be?
SPEAKER_00:I think one of the myths, which is kind of both sides of the coin, is that you have to be a fan of sports to work in sports. I'm a fan of sports and I have played sports my whole life, but you know, Elizabeth Lindsay, who runs our brands and properties division globally, is never really a fan of sports. But it's really about the business of sport is so interesting and the business of business is so interesting. And so I don't think you have to be a fan of insurance to work in insurance or a fan of healthcare to work in healthcare. Two industries that would not necessarily appeal to me to work in, but it helps if you're interested in it, but you don't have to. You might just really be excited about being in accounting or in marketing, and that's the product that you have. The other thing I think the opposite side of that though is that please don't tell us that you're a fan and that's why you're applying, because that's also not something that really like gets you in the door. That's super interesting.
SPEAKER_01:And I would not have thought that about sports. I would have thought you kind of really need to be at least somewhat like excited about the sport to work in that sport. So thinking about the work you're doing at collective, where do you want collective to be in five years from now?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, out of business and for misogyny to be dead and for women to be equal in every way. But I'm not sure based on the millennia of preceding today that that's the case. So, what I would like to do is to have the work that we are building continue to scale globally and really leveraging sport and music and entertainment as a vehicle by which we can continue to deliver the advocacy around women's right to be in the room, women's right to, you know, have equal pay, equal time, equal everything. Hope that that has a real measured outcome for those that we affect, but also for the clients that are investing. You know, we're trying to convince people to invest, and we want to make sure that that actually holds water ultimately. You know, so there's a sense of obligation on us also to help bring the whole industry along. Because if I'm telling you to go invest in this, I'm giving you my word that it's worthy of investment. So, like, how do we then help to continue to propel the whole ecosystem forward? So I love that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, because this podcast is called Women of Influence, what does influence mean to you?
SPEAKER_00:For me, it means different things. And it's it's multifaceted, I should say. So it means the ability to have an audience reconsider their position on things, move in a direction. To me, influence is quiet. It's not forced. To me, influence comes from service in a lot of ways, comes from a sense of humility. To me, influence should be shared, really like takes into consideration the person across the table. Not necessarily doesn't hold water for everything. If you know, we look at the current state of the world. There are very influential people who influence through different methods. And for me, influence is actually more about convincing good traits, good character, good work. And hopefully that will stick.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But I love the point you made about influence really being effective when it's done quietly. It's done not as not as obviously and done through service. I think that's a really interesting way to think about it.
SPEAKER_00:I feel very strongly that real power sits in service of others. And it's not to say that you're a doormat. And that's not to say that you are yesing everybody to death. It's saying, how am I solving a problem that is in service of a greater good? And in this day and age where we are all attached to our phones, doom scrolling and thinking about, you know, ourselves most of the time, how can we actually spend a fraction of that thinking about other people and what might make their world a little bit better? That to me is real power and real influence if you can be effective at that. And so that's where I feel like the collective, we've made a little bit of a name for ourselves and just doing good work, quietly, putting it out there, supporting people, and hopefully making a difference along the way. I love that.
SPEAKER_01:If you could go back and give your younger self who was just getting started one piece of advice, what would that be?
SPEAKER_00:I have an old colleague from my days in NASCAR who used to say, lighten up Sally all the time. And I would say it's that. You know, I think in my effort to be ambitious and to be not perfect, but to really be an achiever of things, like relax. It's all working out. And uh it's very hard to do when you're in it. But when you can relax, you can have more fun, you can kind of see see around all the corners a little bit differently. So that's what I would say.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I have asked many women this question, and uh there's a theme for sure. But I think that what I take away from a lot of the answers to this question uh is that as women, I think we are so earnest. We want things to be right, we want to get it right, we want to do a good job. And I think that because we want that so much, it can be overwhelming. And the idea of lightening up, I have heard also called it's gonna be okay, like going back to tell your younger self, just calm down, it's gonna be okay. Because we want things to be right, we want it to work out, and we do, but it doesn't need to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00:And this is the thing is like the self-perpetuating cycle of which is again, I think about oh my gosh, Gen Z, my daughter's a Gen Z. She's gonna inherit they have literally inherited the wealth of the world, and the last people to know it are Gen Z women. So all of this good work and all of this great fight that we have, they're not, they don't even understand that we've gotten this far because they don't know where we've come from, first of all. But second of all, we keep perpetuating this like, well, be a good girl and finish your whole worksheet. Like, do you think the guys are getting that? They have to finish the whole worksheet. They don't because they're hired on what their potential is, where we're always hired on our past performance. We at this generation need to stop perpetuating that in the workplace and just say, that's good enough. Keep going, keep going, give the opportunity to young women who can really reach for the golden ring.
SPEAKER_01:That was so well articulated because I've heard again, people say this in different ways about how men apply for jobs when they have maybe 40% of the requirements for that job, and women wait till they have a hundred percent of the requirements to think that they can apply for the job. But you saying men are hired based on their potential, and women are hired based on what they've done. And that is a really good way to articulate that.
SPEAKER_00:And it's also exhausting because then we feel like we have to make sure that you know everything is done, dusted, the laundry's folded, put away, kids are fed, vet based, blah blah. And now I can be perfect and maybe. Apply for the job. Like, really? Come on. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us today and sharing so many great insights. And you do get to work in an area that I think people find really interesting and certainly something that they might want to like pursue or kind of work their way towards. So getting some insights about what it's like to work in your space, I think is going to be really interesting for people. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having me. And uh what a gift to be able to do this every day and to meet people like you.
SPEAKER_01:Keep up the good work. Thank you. And same to you. Thanks.
