How to Prevent a Crisis Manager From Causing a Crisis in Entertainment

Sharon Waxman is an award-winning journalist and media entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in international reporting and entertainment journalism. She is the founder and CEO of The Wrap News Inc., a leading multiplatform news organization dedicated to the business of entertainment and media. Since its launch in 2009, TheWrap has become a key industry resource, known for breaking high-profile stories, delivering authoritative analysis, and fostering a vibrant global community of entertainment professionals and enthusiasts. The company also includes specialized platforms such as ItsontheGrid.com and ThePowerGrid, and hosts TheGrill, an influential leadership conference exploring the convergence of entertainment, media, and technology. Under Waxman’s leadership, TheWrap has received numerous accolades, including being named Best Online News Site by the Los Angeles Press Club and one of the “100 Most Important Online Publishers” by OMMA.

Before founding TheWrap, Waxman served as a Hollywood correspondent for The New York Times, and prior to that, she was a reporter for The Washington Post. Her work has long focused on the intersection of media, culture, and business, with a particular emphasis in recent years on global cultural conflicts. She is the author of Loot: The Battle of the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World, published by Times Books, which explores issues of cultural heritage and international restitution. Waxman holds a B.A. in English from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an M.Phil. in Modern Middle East Studies from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. Her expertise spans entertainment, media, foreign politics, and high culture.

Michael Sitrick is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sitrick And Company. An internationally recognized expert in the strategic use of communications, Mr. Sitrick has been the subject of numerous articles focusing on the results he has achieved for clients.

Since founding Sitrick And Company 35 years ago, he has provided advice, counsel and developed and implemented strategic communications programs for more than 1,000 companies, including some of the world’s largest corporations, as well as scores of high profile individuals – both on routine and extremely sensitive matters. While his work has been largely concentrated in the world of business, clients also have included companies and individuals in sports, entertainment, academia, healthcare, religion and politics. In politics, he has provided counsel to two candidates running in the U.S. Presidential primaries, United States Senators and a big-city Mayor – among others. Matters with which he has been involved span the spectrum. Although many of Mr. Sitrick’s cases have dominated the headlines, the cases that are never heard about –where Mr. Sitrick and his firm have kept their clients out of the media and off the Internet – are equally if not more noteworthy.