Team
Jen Kasle, C.E.O. and Founder
As C.E.O. of The Talent, Jen oversees all accounts at the company and advises her carefully trained staff of 7 full time employees, along with various free-lancers and interns. Jen launched The Talent as JB Talent in the Spring of 2005 and has stayed true to the company goal of booking superior and on-brand talent for television talk shows, award shows, magazine covers, celebrity castings, events and online. Jen helped cast the hosts of CBS’s The Talk and the company booked all aspects of guest talent for The Talk for 13 seasons, winning two Daytime Emmy’s along the way. She secured covers for Health magazine for 7 years, film talent for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson for over 5 years, and film talent for Watch What Happens Live on Bravo with Andy Cohen for over five years. The Talent has become the go-to agency for celebrity game shows, responsible for booking all of the celebrities for Hollywood Game Night, Match Game, Pyramid, and The Gong Show. The Talent has an ongoing contract with Dick Clark Productions to book presenters for the AMAs, Billboard Music Awards, ACMs and the NBA Awards. Perhaps her proudest efforts, however, have been in the non-profit sector where she’s booked for Red Nose Day for three years raising over 30M annually for children’s charities, as well as booking and producing the 2017 Hand in Hand Benefit (pulled together in less than 10 days) to raise millions for hurricane victims. Booking highlights have included Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Oprah, Cher, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Robin Williams, Steve Carell, Jack Black, Jamie Foxx, Scarlett Johansson, David Beckham, Kobe Bryant, Russell Crowe, Robert Downey Jr., Matthew McConaughey, Ben Stiller, Billy Crystal and Samuel L Jackson.
Sarah Goldsmith, Co-President
Sarah joined The Talent in 2009 from the syndicated daytime show Rachael Ray. Sarah’s game show coverage at The Talent includes clients such as To Tell The Truth with Anthony Anderson and Guy’s Ultimate Game Night for The Food Network among many other Primetime specials for all the major networks. Sarah’s other highlights include the daily bookings for The Talk on CBS, The Great American Baking Show Celebrity Edition for Roku and Squished for Amazon Freevee. Sarah has received 3 Daytime Emmy’s for her work on Rachael Ray and The Talk. Sarah specializes in host casting for all platforms and networks and continues to further this niche casting need at The Talent. A graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Sarah grew up in Encino, California and started her career at Entertainment Tonight.
Julie Rashid, Co-President
Julie has brought in and run some of the The Talent’s major accounts across various networks and platforms. She has spearheaded the teams that booked American Idol, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, $100,000 Pyramid with Michael Strahan, Daily Blast Live, Larry King Now, A Little Late with Lilly Singh, five seasons of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on Bravo, and Dennis Miller + One. Her expertise on award shows, which came from being a producer at Entertainment Tonight for 9 years, has crossed over to presenter bookings for The American Music Awards, The Billboard Music Awards, The Academy of Country Music Awards, Much Music Video Awards, and The NBA Awards. She’s also secured top talent for Carol Burnett’s 90th Birthday Special, USO music tours, Josh Gates Tonight, The NBA Celebrity All-Star Game, Miss America, The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo and Carol Burnett’s 50th Anniversary Special. Julie joined The Talent in 2011 after concluding 5 years as a producer for the Emmy-winning Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago.
Marisa Tener Shold, Director of Talent
Marisa joined The Talent in 2013 in Los Angeles, before moving to the East Coast where she continues booking for the company. She has produced celebrity talent for many game shows including Hollywood Game Night, Match Game, To Tell The Truth, Pyramid, Celebrity Name Game, Celebrity Dating Game, Guy’s Ultimate Game Night, About Last Night and The Gong Show. She has worked on a myriad of cooking shows including The Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Edition, No Taste Like Home, Celebrity Family Food Battle, Worst Cooks: Celebrity Edition, Dinner at Tiffani’s and Celebrity Food Fight. She has lead the team on numerous accounts including Fashion Police, Josh Gates Tonight, Bill Nye Saves the World as well as several kids and family programming including Yo Gabba Gabbaland, The Tiny Chef, Unfiltered and NFL Slimetime. Prior to working at The Talent Marisa worked in the fashion industry for over a decade. She spent several years working as a Photo Producer for Eddie Bauer in Seattle, as an agent for Ford Models in both New York and Los Angeles, an Account Manager at Starworks/SW2 in New York, and as a Bookings Editor at Cosmopolitan Magazine.
Kera Schulze, Director of Talent
Kera joined The Talent in 2015 after two seasons at The Ellen DeGeneres Show and since, has casted talent for dozens of projects spanning multiple networks, production companies and genres including talk shows, game shows, variety shows, competition series, live events and more. Currently, Kera spearheads the internal booking team for IMDb, securing exclusive celebrity interviews and content for the website’s 250M+ global users. Additionally, she's secured A-list talent for several of IMDb’s on-the-ground activations including Golden Globes, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW and San Diego Comic-Con. Kera also leads the booking team for the most watched daily show on the internet, Good Mythical Morning hosted by YouTube pioneers Rhett & Link, along with Mythical’s food-based interview series, Last Meals. She’s been instrumental in growing the show's reach with guest bookings such as Tom Hanks, Post Malone, Gordon Ramsay, Ella Purnell, Gaten Matarazzo, Meghan Trainor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tony Hawk and more. Given Kera’s passion for music, she also has a strong hand in booking several of the company’s music-based shows, most notably Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, American Idol on ABC and the company’s first scripted series, The Muppets Mayhem for Disney+. Her additional credits include NFL Slimetime for Nickelodeon, season 1 of A Little Late with Lilly Singh, Red Nose Day, and top-rated ABC gameshow $100,000 Pyramid. She is a graduate of Ithaca College in New York.
Nicole Schloss, Talent Executive
Nicole joined The Talent in 2018 with a passion for music and live events. She has a strong hand in music bookings at The Talent and over the years has booked for some of the biggest live events on television. Her credits include American Idol, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, NBA Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, Larry King Now, The Talk, USO and more. Nicole is one of the lead bookers on the booking team for IMDb, the #1 movie website in the world, helping secure talent for their website, social platforms and on-the-ground events at SXSW, San Diego Comic-Con and Sundance Film Festival. Most recently, Nicole joined the booking team for the most watched daily show on the internet, Good Mythical Morning with Rhett & Link and Mythical’s food-based interview show Last Meals. Nicole loves being able to work on a variety of projects for an array of networks and production companies. Nicole came to The Talent from dick clark productions (dcp), the world’s largest producer of televised live entertainment programming.
Bri Reed, Talent Assistant
Bri joined The Talent as a Talent Assistant in March 2024. Bri graduated from the University of Michigan with a BFA in Theatre Design and Production with a concentration in Stage Management in May 2021. After graduation she had a Television Academy Foundation internship with Bunim-Murray Productions. Continuing to focus on Unscripted Development, Bri moved to LA in order to be the Manager of Development at Brian Graden Media for her first year post-grad. She is looking forward to beginning her journey in Talent Booking and working on a team with so many accomplished women in the industry!
Caroline Gillespie, Talent Assistant
Caroline joined The Talent as a Talent Assistant in January 2023. Caroline graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a B.A. in Communication Studies and Theatre Arts in May 2021. She then took a gap year to travel and work in Italy before returning to LA to lay down some roots. She is so grateful to have found such an amazing company to help build her professional foundation and she is beyond excited to get her start in the industry and learn from this exceptional team.
Sam Furmaniak, Sports News Intern
Sam recently joined The Talent this Fall as a Sports News Intern. He is currently a junior at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, majoring in communications with an extreme love and passion for sports. Sam returned to LA after his freshman year at Syracuse as a Broadcast and Digital Journalism major at the Newhouse School to pursue a career in acting. While at Syracuse he was a member of two different radio shows, WAER and Z89. Prior to Syracuse Sam spent four years researching, writing, producing and recording his on podcast on SoundCloud and YouTube, That Football Topic. Since returning to LA, Sam has studied acting at the New York Film Academy and for the last year has been an active student of Playhouse West in Studio City. Sam is continuing his training at Playhouse West and auditioning in LA while earning his degree at LMU.
Jish Sokolsky, Sports News Intern
Jish is a junior Broadcast and Digital Journalism major at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. It's his dream to add his name to the list of decorated sportscasters who have gone to Syracuse like Mike Tirico, Bob Costas, Marv Albert and many others. Jish is involved with the WAER 88.3 FM sports department covering all Syracuse sports as its social media manager, a sports talk host and producer, and a member of the sports desk. He is also on the sports staff at WJPZ (Z89) radio, where he provides play-by-play, writes and voices stories, hosts pregame, halftime and postgame shows as well as the Friday morning drive time show: the Friday Zoo. Jish also is an executive producer of the No Pulp Podcast with Citrus TV, the nation's most advanced student-run TV station. Before Syracuse, Jish was the voice of the Kean University Cougars; providing play-by-play for every sport at Kean and co-creating the school's sports podcast called Cougar Culture. The past two summers, Jish was the play-by-play broadcaster for the Cropdusters Baseball team in Olney, Maryland, and was selected to broadcast the all-star game of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League both years. When he graduates, Jish wants to be a play-by-play broadcaster for a team's radio network or a network TV station.