By Stacy Milner, Founder & CEO, Entertainment Industry College Outreach Program (EICOP)
Atlanta has long been one of the nation’s most influential creative and cultural hubs. From film and television to music, sports, gaming, digital media, and live entertainment, the city continues to shape conversations, culture, and commerce far beyond the South.
But as Georgia’s creative economy continues to expand, an important question sits underneath that growth: who is building the foundation needed to sustain it long term?
The next era of entertainment is being shaped by far more than what happens on a soundstage. The convergence of entertainment, sports, gaming, music, artificial intelligence, digital storytelling, live experiences, and emerging technology is rapidly expanding what this business is and what it needs from the people who work within it.
Behind every production exists a broad professional ecosystem spanning legal affairs, finance, operations, marketing, communications, technology, labor relations, talent representation, and executive leadership. As the industry evolves, workforce development must evolve with it.
Right now, pathways into many of those careers remain fragmented or invisible to a significant portion of emerging talent. That is not simply an inclusion issue. It is a talent development issue, and one with real consequences for the long-term health and competitiveness of the creative economy.
Georgia is better positioned than almost any market in the country to help change that.
The state’s combination of production assets, HBCUs, universities, and a deeply collaborative professional culture creates a unique set of conditions unlike those of more traditional entertainment markets. Georgia does not need to replicate those models. It has the opportunity to build something distinct: a more connected, more accessible approach to how creative industries develop and sustain the people who power them.
But that will require intentional collaboration between industry, education, community organizations, and public leadership. It requires organizations willing to work across all of those spaces simultaneously.
That is the work I founded the Entertainment Industry College Outreach Program (EICOP) to do.
I spent nearly two decades in the entertainment business, including time supporting the chairmen of NBC and Paramount. What I witnessed consistently was this: the students and young professionals who never made it through the door were not lacking in ability. They were lacking access, exposure, and the professional footing that makes a career in this field possible. I built EICOP to address exactly that.
EICOP functions as a workforce development and innovation partner, connecting students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other underrepresented institutions to real career experiences, professional development, and long-term pathways across the entertainment and creative economy. Our partners include The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, United Talent Agency, Major League Baseball, AEG, and Activision, among others.
Since launching in 2017, EICOP has connected more than 600 students and emerging professionals to paid career opportunities, mentorship, and immersive industry experiences nationwide. The program maintains an 89% intern-to-hire conversion rate. Alumni from Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Georgia State University, and institutions across the country are now working at major agencies, studios, media companies, and sports organizations.
Those outcomes reflect what becomes possible when talent development is approached as a long-term investment in people, relationships, and workforce infrastructure.
As EICOP deepens its presence in Atlanta through HBCU IN ATL®, the work centers on bridging education, career readiness, and the direction the industry is moving. That means new models around production training, business-side career pathways, and cross-sector collaboration built around where entertainment is going, not where it has been.
Atlanta already has the institutions, the talent, and the momentum. What determines whether Georgia leads the next chapter of this industry is whether it chooses to invest in the people who are ready to drive it forward.
Sustainable growth is not only about what gets produced. The people behind the industry matter just as much as the industry itself, and the time to invest in them is now.
