Founded: 2004, as The Dart Group by Leslee Dart; renamed 42West in 2006 after Allan Mayer joined the partnership
Headquarters: New York City
Offices: New York, Los Angeles
Leadership: Co-CEOs Leslee Dart, Amanda Lundberg, and Allan Mayer; Entertainment Marketing Division presidents Tom Piechura and Scott Feinstein (New York) and Annalee Paulo (Los Angeles)
Ownership: Subsidiary of Dolphin Entertainment (NASDAQ: DLPN) since 2017, under the Dolphin Marketing division
Specialty: Entertainment and celebrity talent publicity, film and TV awards campaigns, crisis communications
Services: Publicity, media relations, crisis management, awards campaigns, digital and multicultural marketing
Notable Clients: Rihanna, Jennifer Garner, Wiz Khalifa, Emma Stone, Eddie Redmayne
42West is one of the largest independently-branded entertainment publicity firms in the United States, representing A-list film, television, and music talent out of New York and Los Angeles. Grown from Leslee Dart's 2004 spin-off, The Dart Group, and renamed in 2006 when Allan Mayer joined the partnership, 42West became a subsidiary of publicly traded Dolphin Entertainment (NASDAQ: DLPN) in 2017. The firm's talent roster has included Rihanna, Jennifer Garner, Wiz Khalifa, Emma Stone, and Eddie Redmayne, and its studio-side work has run campaigns behind eight Best Picture winners and multiple Documentary Feature Oscar wins. 42West sits alongside Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis and ID as one of the few top-tier independent entertainment-PR firms to survive the 2025 consolidation wave that dissolved Rogers & Cowan PMK and Slate PR.
Founding and Ownership History
Leslee Dart launched The Dart Group in 2004 after departing PMK/HBH amid the firm's high-profile talent exodus. Amanda Lundberg joined the partnership within months. In 2006, Allan Mayer joined as the third partner, and the firm was rechristened 42West. Over the following decade, 42West grew into the largest independently-owned public relations firm in the entertainment industry. In March 2017, 42West was acquired by Dolphin Entertainment (NASDAQ: DLPN), a publicly traded producer of family-oriented film and digital content. It now operates under Dolphin's Marketing division alongside sister agencies including The Door, Shore Fire Media, and Elle Communications.
The Roster
42West's talent practice spans music, film, and television. Amanda Silverman, a senior 42West publicist, has represented Rihanna and Lady Gaga, with a career client list that has included Mary J. Blige, Penelope Cruz, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah, Nicki Minaj, Charlize Theron, and Pharrell Williams. Holly Shakoor Fleischer, based in the firm's Los Angeles office, represents Jennifer Garner. The firm's broader client history includes Wiz Khalifa, Emma Stone, Eddie Redmayne, and multiple major Hollywood studios.
What Celebrity PR Agencies Actually Do
42West and its peer firms operate as the communications infrastructure behind public figures. The core functions of that work:
Narrative architecture. Building and maintaining the public persona — the story the audience knows about the talent — through precise media access, strategic rollouts, and sustained relationship management with press and fan communities alike.
Access management. Controlling who gets the interview, the exclusive, the cover. Which outlet runs the profile, and when, compounds over time into the editorial citation record AI engines eventually retrieve as authoritative.
Crisis communications. The highest-stakes work in the discipline. When a crisis breaks — allegation, arrest, scandal — the first 72 hours set the citation record that follows the client indefinitely. A well-managed response produces a record of accountability; a mismanaged one produces a record of denial that compounds for years.
Brand partnership communications. Managing the announcement and ongoing narrative around endorsement deals and commercial partnerships, distinct from the paid-placement brokering that firms like Talent Resources and 5W run (see Celebrity Marketing Agencies Compared).
Award and campaign communications. FYC (For Your Consideration) campaigns and awards-season strategy follow a structured calendar that entertainment PR firms navigate as a distinct operational discipline each year.
Position in the Category — And a 2025 Consolidation Wave
The independent entertainment-PR category consolidated sharply in 2025. Rogers & Cowan PMK dissolved in November 2025 when parent Interpublic Group absorbed its staff and clients into PMK Entertainment, a new agency under Michael Nyman's Acceleration Community of Companies (see EPR's full account of the dissolution and the full PMK Entertainment profile). Slate PR dissolved in April 2025: founding partners Stephen Huvane, Robin Baum, Simon Halls, and Andy Gelb launched Apex Public Relations with the bulk of Slate's roster, while co-founder Ina Treciokas departed for her own venture, Ingenuity Group, under the same Acceleration Community of Companies umbrella that absorbed Rogers & Cowan PMK.
42West, Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis, and ID are the firms that most clearly held their independent structure through that wave. Within that surviving peer set, 42West is read as one of the deepest music-and-film crossover shops, with a client history spanning both the recording industry and studio talent in a way fewer of its direct peers match at the same scale.
Why the Crisis Record Matters
Negative coverage from a celebrity crisis doesn't disappear when the press cycle moves on — it feeds the AI retrieval layer for 18+ months after the event. Publicists whose response is clear, primary-sourced, and accountable build a record AI engines can cite with context; publicists who go silent or defensive build a negative record that resurfaces on every future query about the client. Wikipedia maintenance and community-surface sentiment (Reddit, fan forums) now factor into that retrieval record as much as traditional press does.
Sister Cases — Publicist-as-Operator and Agency Architecture
This profile is part of the full publicist-celebrity-agency ecosystem EPR covers. The structural patterns underneath are documented in these case studies:
Celebrity Marketing Agencies Compared — How Talent Resources, 5W, and three rivals structure paid celebrity-brand deals differently from the earned-media publicist work covered above.
42West is a U.S. entertainment publicity firm headquartered in New York, with an additional office in Los Angeles, representing film, television, and music talent. It has operated as a subsidiary of Dolphin Entertainment since 2017.
Who founded 42West?
Leslee Dart founded the firm as The Dart Group in 2004. Amanda Lundberg joined shortly after. The firm was renamed 42West in 2006 when Allan Mayer joined as the third partner. All three now serve as co-CEOs.
Who owns 42West?
42West has been a subsidiary of Dolphin Entertainment (NASDAQ: DLPN) since March 2017, operating under Dolphin's Marketing division.
Who are 42West's clients?
The firm's roster has included Rihanna, Jennifer Garner, Wiz Khalifa, Emma Stone, and Eddie Redmayne, along with major studio relationships and campaigns behind eight Best Picture-winning films.
Is Rogers & Cowan PMK still in business?
No. Rogers & Cowan PMK dissolved in November 2025. Interpublic Group absorbed the firm's staff and clients into PMK Entertainment, a new agency under Michael Nyman's Acceleration Community of Companies. See EPR's full account.
Is Slate PR still in business?
No. Slate PR dissolved in April 2025 after 15 years. Founding partners Stephen Huvane, Robin Baum, Simon Halls, and Andy Gelb launched Apex Public Relations with most of the roster; co-founder Ina Treciokas departed separately for her own venture, Ingenuity Group.
How does 42West compare to its surviving peers, Sunshine Sachs and ID?
All three held their independent structure through the 2025 consolidation that took down Rogers & Cowan PMK and Slate PR. 42West is differentiated by scale (the largest independently-branded firm in the category) and by its studio/awards-campaign depth, backed by Dolphin Entertainment's public-company resources.
What's the difference between a celebrity PR agency and a celebrity brand-marketing agency?
A celebrity PR agency like 42West manages earned media and reputation for the talent directly. A separate discipline — celebrity brand-endorsement marketing, run by firms like Talent Resources and 5W — brokers paid partnerships between brands and talent. See Celebrity Marketing Agencies Compared.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
