“I realized what interested me was the opportunity to help people who had ideas and stories bring those to fruition—to be the enabler, the support network, and the business mind for them,” Tina recalls. “And when I looked around in music, film or television, people with law degrees and lawyers played a big role.” That discovery led her to law school, where everything “clicked.” 

In pursuit of that dream, as a 2L at Harvard Law School, Tina went through the lottery-based process to interview with Cravath. “I kept hearing about the training and the brilliant legal minds you would be around,” she says. “And when I spoke with the interviewing partner, it really sunk in, what everybody was telling me about the Firm.

“It seemed to me the right place to build the foundation of my career.”

Of her Cravath experience, Tina says she would tell that younger version of herself wondering whether to start a career in private practice: Run, don’t walk. 

“If I was to have a resume come across my desk of someone who worked at Cravath, I would immediately know that they were a very hard worker,” she says. “There’s a thoughtfulness they were taught in the earliest years of their career about their work, and I know they know how fortunate they were to have had that experience. I've never met a person that didn’t appreciate and understand the privilege it was.”

She adds: “Your first four to probably seven years out of law school, you need to learn how to think critically. You need to learn how to make mistakes and pick yourself back up and not make the same mistake again. You need to learn how to be scared and how to succeed. And for me, Cravath was one of the best environments to learn that in.”

As an associate in the Firm’s Corporate Department, Tina worked on mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and securities filings, among other complex corporate matters. She recalls the stakes being intimidating for a young lawyer, but that having the opportunity to work at such a level was exciting as a young professional. 

While Tina built her foundation in the legal world, she continued her path toward the entertainment industry. “I was at Cravath for almost five years and knew in the back of my mind that I was interested in migrating to the business operation side at some point,” she says. “So I was networking the best I could and looking for jobs that were open.”

She caught her big break when she interviewed at Viacom for an entry-level position handling business and legal affairs. Tina hadn’t worked on any intellectual property or entertainment matters at Cravath but did keep pace with her passion for the industry by “intensely” reading trade papers and “constantly” consuming books on the subject—a breadth and depth of knowledge that impressed her interviewer.

Even after she landed the job at Viacom, Tina didn’t slow down with her research or in her ambition. 

She studied the career paths of people within Viacom and throughout the industry; she kept files of articles pulled from the entertainment trades and magazines. Eventually, she realized that everyone whose careers she admired had all spent an immense amount of time in Los Angeles. 

“Some of them were still in LA, others had spent 10 to 15 years in LA and gone back to New York, but it was this common trait,” she says. “So, I spoke to my boss quite a bit about whether the company would relocate me. Viacom had West Coast offices and I was fortunate that an opportunity opened up there.”

When Tina relocated to California, she never took the bar—trusting fully that she would migrate to the business side, like she’d always envisioned—and while it was an opportunity she’d long been preparing for, it didn’t make the transition any easier. But as with every challenge she’d faced in her professional career, she embraced it. 

“What was fantastic was that from nuts to bolts I learned how to do scripted deals and how to work with talent,” she recalls. “What was complicated and hard was that I did not necessarily understand the fundamentals of copyright and IP law given my transactional background. I was learning it all on the job.”

Tina held tight to one piece of advice from her father whenever the road ahead seemed difficult or uncertain. “He used to tell me, ‘If you build it fast, it crumbles fast,’” she recalls. “It’s a reminder that life is a journey, and of the longevity of your career and the time and belief required to reach your goals.”

It was a thought she kept in mind as she considered potential steps after Viacom. Of her time there, Tina says: “I had a great team of people I worked with and I really enjoyed all of my creative clients. But I had a more passionate interest in the business and operational sides, and wanted the holistic approach of looking at the entertainment industry versus just doing deals.”

So when she heard about a new, yet-to-be-launched television network, she followed the professional curiosity that had guided her to that point, applying for and landing a role at OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. 

Creativity is a key tenet of her day-to-day, Tina says, though not in the way people might expect. “In everybody’s job, at some point you’re telling a story. It’s a fundamental skill,” she explains. “The ability to say what your position is on an issue, or when you’re presenting to stakeholders—we are all creating narratives. Whatever job you’re doing, you must flex that ability.”

For the child from Oklahoma City who spent many weekends at the movie theater, a fulfilling career in entertainment is a happy ending to a long and winding journey. 

• Stanford University – Bachelor of Arts, Political Science
• University of Oxford – Master of Science, Comparative Social Policy
• Harvard Law School – Juris Doctor  

• Good to Great by James C. Collins
• An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler
• The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhashar 
• The Metaverse by Matthew Ball