How we got here
Audrey Locke grew up in Austin and spent five years as a junior agent at a Los Angeles management firm before realizing that the agency model she'd been trained in was, in her words, "designed to extract value from the talent and shift risk onto them." She left in 2021.
Carter James was a senior engineering manager at a Bay Area subscription-platform startup. He'd watched too many creators get burned by predatory contracts and platform algorithms that punished consistency over virality. He wanted to build something better.
The two met at a small creator-economy conference in late 2021, sketched the agency on a napkin, and incorporated Cherry Locke Talent LLC in February 2022. The first creator signed in April 2022. The roster has grown by 2-3 creators per year, by design — we don't believe in volume representation.
Where we work
Our headquarters is a converted 1920s loft in East Austin — about 4,200 square feet of office, meeting rooms, and a small in-house design studio. Our production studio in Las Vegas (opened October 2023) handles shoots, set construction, and post-production for the roster.
Our operations team works out of a Manila office that runs 24/6, handling scheduling, posting, and community across the roster. We're proud to provide stable, salaried jobs with full medical and 25 days PTO for the team there.