Hecho Studios has named Adam Milano as its head of development, a new title at the company. He makes the move from Live Nation where he served as SVP of production, most recently producing the GLAAD-awarded and Emmy-nominated Believer documentary with Imagine Dragons’ frontman Dan Reynolds. Milano worked across Live Nation’s slate of music-driven projects, including The Afterparty, a hip-hop comedy directed by Ian Edelman which premiered on Netflix in 2018, and GAGA: FIVE FOOT TWO.
At Hecho, Milano will report directly to Hecho Studios president Briony McCarthy.
“Adam is both radically in tune with culture and a consummate experienced creator and producer,” said McCarthy. “As our first head of development, he’ll focus on developing our upcoming slate of reality, pop culture, and music content and support our newly formed branded content division. The brands we work with are hungry for quality content so we’re growing fast and Adam will be growing with us.”
Milano arrives at Hecho Studios on the heels of the company’s biggest year on record. McCarthy credits Hecho’s success in part to the move the company made last year to bring media thinking upstream in the content creation and production process. “Our media programmers tune our creators into exactly how audiences are consuming content across certain platforms, so we only ever make what we know will work,” she said.
Another huge part of Hecho’s rapid growth is the alternative and diverse talent the company advocates for. “Adam is a great example of the kind of talent brands get access to at Hecho Studios,” McCarthy said. “He develops ideas based on the content people want to engage with, not ads we want them to see, plus he is highly attuned to content the networks are buying so more of what we make gets out into the world.”
Milano will lead the charge in diversifying Hecho’s originals entertainment and branded content productions into more scripted, reality and music-based programming in the context of current culture.
“When it comes to making content, timeliness is everything,” said Milano. “Hecho creates outstanding content, in every category, at the speed of culture. This is an incredible group of creative people.”
Last year, Hecho Studios appointed Evan Rosenfeld to head of documentary and TV and currently has a slate of 12 sports, lifestyle and travel documentaries in development; it includes a content series for MailChimp Presents and a podcast series for Los Angeles Times and Apple.
Milano’s previous posts include SVP film at Simon Cowell’s SYCO Entertainment, where he helped Cowell launch the U.S. division of his global media empire and SYCO’s scripted film/television division. While there Milano produced the One Direction movie, This is Us. Milano began his career at Sony Pictures Entertainment, working from 2002-2012 as VP of production. He managed a large slate of films across all genres ranging from small budget releases (The House Bunny, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) to larger budgets (Just Go With It, Vantage Point and Monster House).
