Tiauna Jackson

Tiauna Jackson is the founder of Jackson Agency, a Talent and Literary Agency that has been breaking barriers and changing the game since 2014. Due to racial barriers to entry, Jackson was unable to gain employment at several agencies and found that the only way she could get interviews at these agencies was through using a non-ethnic name. As a progenitor of change, she did not sit idly, these barriers to entry served as the bricks in which she has used to build her Hollywood based talent agency. She has always embraced her heritage and proudly dubbed herself a Black Talent Agent, which wasn't always well received. Today, the small underestimated talent agency has grown into a full service talent and literary agency globally, embracing all artists above-the-line and below-the-line, making history several times over along the way. Jackson became a household name in 2019 after she was featured in the New York Times in a piece about the "Uphill Battles of Black Agents in Hollywood." In this piece, she appeared alongside several powerful Black Agents who worked for her competitors, however Jackson was the only one who actually owned her agency outright. In the fall of 2019 Ms. Jackson shocked the industry by making history as a Writers Guild of America franchise in Los Angeles and Atlanta. She became the first ever franchise in Georgia; and is believed to be the first known Black woman with 100 percent ownership of her agency to have a Writers Guild of America franchise in Los Angeles. In the summer of 2020 Ms. Jackson was recruited by the prestigious Association of Talent Agents (ATA) to join their ranks and help form their Racial Equality Task Force. It was then during their first townhall as the newly formed Task Force that Ms. Jackson spoke about the racial adversity she faced and the irony of working alongside these same agents as a fellow member and peer. The rise and grind mentality of Tiauna Jackson did not stop there, she co-founded the Black Agents Network a professional networking association for Black Talent Agency owners worldwide, and she became a partner in joint venture 'Collective 5 Entertainment' where she found herself among the most powerful executives in the publishing world at the end of 2020. Relentless, Ms. Jackson started 2021 off with another professional achievement, having become a Directors Guild of America franchise and celebrated the 7th anniversary of her boutique agency in the fall, but winter of 2021 is where Jackson's resilience in the face of adversity finally paid off. She ran for one of the 12 slots on the ATA's Board of Directors. Placing fifth overall, Jackson became the first Black woman ever elected to the Board of Directors of the ATA, and will serve as the only Black woman elected to the Board of Directors for the 2022-2024 term. Ms. Jackson is a graduate of two highly regarded universities within the entertainment industry, totaling three distinctions: Chapman University for Communications, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television's Professional Program for Producing, and the Professional Program in Screenwriting. She also attended Jackson State University, a popular HBCU.