David Ciccarelli OUT! And Why That’s BAD for Voice Actors
Two weeks ago, I said that Voices was getting desperate and ten days later they ousted their CEO, David Ciccarelli.
I hate to say I told you so, but…
Earlier this week, Voices made the following announcement:
Dear Valued Customers and Friends,
Today, we share some bittersweet news as we bid farewell to a cherished member of our team, David, who has been at the helm of Voices.com, Inc. as its chief executive officer for the past 18 years.
Since founding Voices.com, David and his wife Stephanie have been instrumental in nurturing and growing the community and building the marketplace.
His dedication and leadership have been integral to our success and we are immensely grateful for the journey we have shared under his guidance.
David's decision to step down as CEO was not made lightly. He leaves with great optimism for the future of Voices.com and the industry we serve. He firmly believes that fresh leadership is essential to take our platform to new heights.
Rest assured that our commitment to providing you with the highest level of service remains unwavering.
While David will transition to the role of Strategic Advisor supporting our incoming CEO, our talented team will continue to uphold the same values and unwavering support that have defined our community.
Your success and satisfaction remain our top priorities, and we are here to serve you as diligently as ever. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Warmest regards, Julianna Jones, Director, Customer Experience, Voices.
The next day Voices’ Blog posted a message, ostensibly from David himself:
Today I share the news of my resignation as the chief executive officer of Voices.com.
This decision has not come lightly. [Same language.]
Over the past 18 years, I've had the privilege of building voices.com alongside my dear wife Stephanie, transforming it into the largest platform of its kind.
However, the time has come for a new chapter in our journey.
While I am excited about Voices.com's bright future and place in our industry, fresh leadership is needed to guide us forward.
After thoughtful discussions with our Board of Directors, I've decided to step down from my role as CEO. Nevertheless, I'm not going far. I will continue to serve the company as a strategic advisor supporting our incoming CEO,
[Also the same language.]
and I'll remain a dedicated board member offering my strategic insights.
Though I wish to speak with each of you individually, [Really? by your own numbers, David, there are 4 million voice actors on your platform] allow me to address our community.
To the Voice Talent
In our earliest days, we connected directly with many of you, responding to countless emails, manning our toll free customer support line, and helping you embark on your journeys in voice acting. I strived to share my audio engineering, business, and technology knowledge through videos, webinars, podcasts and calls.
I hope our time together will be cherished.
Not likely, David. Just because you build a pool doesn't mean we cherish people who later pee in it.
He continues with messages to the team, to the investors, and to the board and to clients. All typical corporate speak.
So, what does this mean for Voices going forward? And more importantly, what does it mean for voice actors?
Spoiler alert: It ain’t good for anybody
Now, I talked to a number of industry people this week, and the general consensus is this: that after months of declining listings and likely declining profits, that Morgan Stanley… who is the private equity owner of Voices.com, the majority shareholder, they invested $18 million into Voices in 2017… likely they'd had enough and asked Ciccarelli to step aside.
The telltale phrase in David's post is, “after thoughtful discussions with our board of directors.”
Translation: “I had a choice. I could either walk out or be carried.”
Now, this looks like a bit of a rush job because the guy that they replaced David with is an advisor to Morgan Stanley. He is part of their machinery. His name is Jay O'Connor, and he's never been a CEO.
He's going to have to learn on the job real quick and act like one. His first job most likely will be to cut costs drastically, to make Voices.com appear profitable on paper so that they can find a suitor and recoup as much of this $18 million that they invested years ago as much as possible.
Good luck with that.
Now, who might the likely suitors be for Voices.com?
First, Backstage, who already owns Voice123 and who David has said, years ago, were, at least at that point, already interested in acquiring Voices. Now, Backstage, of course, is owned by Cast and Crew, who describes themselves like this: “a leading end-to-end cloud-based platform powering global entertainment production and content creation.”
Now, could Backstage merge Voices with Voice123? Absolutely they could.
Will they? Who knows? If they did, they potentially lose at least a bit of revenue because many voice actors subscribe to both platforms.
The other likely candidate would be Casting Networks who is owned by Talent Systems, who in 2022 was acquired by Redbird Capital Partners.
Again, private equity.
Now, the long and the short of the Ciccarelli ousting, if that's what you choose to believe, and I think that's likely, is that this is just another milestone in the corporatization of the large casting platforms and these private equity companies don't give a lick about Jane or Joe Average Voice Actor.
They are there simply to build businesses that on paper are profitable so that they can sell them to the highest bidder.
So, while David and Stephanie Ciccarelli are reviled by most of the voice acting community for the way that they've run the business over the last several years, David's exit is not necessarily good for voice actors.
If you think private equity folks are going to swoop in and start mending fences with the voice-acting community, I think you're being naive.
What it does mean for our industry is more change.
It also means that I think we finally need to recognize and fully accept that these larger private equity held platforms… Voices, Voice123, Fiverr, Upwork and the like… they don't care about voice actors. They're simply buying and selling, and they don't give a rat's ass about anything other than shareholder value.
And this is the other distinction that we need to make: those casting platform rooms that are still privately owned… CastVoices, Bodalgo, Voquent, VOPlanet… the owners of those platforms have worked their tails off to build solid relationships with the voice acting community.
Yes, they are absolutely trying to build profitable businesses. But if you choose to use casting sites as part of your business development strategy, then these are the places where you should be spending your money.
These are the mom and pops, just like your business is who are working their tails off every day to provide value, both to voice actors and to buyers.
They're not getting rich off of these businesses that they've built, but they deserve to.
These founders put their blood, sweat and tears into these platforms, into these services, just like you do into your voice acting business.
Liz Atherton and Bobby and Elizabeth Alcott at CastVoices,
Armin Hierstetter at Bodalgo
Miles Chicoine at Voquent, and
Kevin West at VOPlanet
These are the folks that are working their tails off to try and make our industry better and stronger.
And those are the folks that deserve your support.
For more information on the VO Freedom Master Plan or to get my Move Touch Inspire newsletter every Thursday for voice actors, click those links.
And as always, if you found value from this video, if it helped you, more importantly, if you think it would help other people in the business, then like, share, and subscribe to the channel And that way the algorithms and everybody can discover the content that we're providing here and hopefully we can help a lot more people.
We publish new videos every Thursday. Move, Touch and Inspire comes out every Thursday as well.
Thank you for being part of the conversation in the comments. Thank you for being part of the conversation in our VO Pro community, on our Facebook page, VO Freedom, and in the community at large. Thank you so much.
The more we talk about what's going on in our business, the more we come together, the more we understand the issues, the better we can support each other, and the stronger industry we can have.
Thanks so much for your support and we will see you back again next week.