How Roc Nation’s Co-Presidents Went From NYC Internships To The C-Suite

Meet Roc Nation co-presidents Shari Bryant and Omar Grant: East Harlem and Bronx natives, respectively, who worked their way up from interning for Jay-Z and Beyoncé to leading Hova’s multimillion-dollar entertainment company.

Bryant and Grant’s stars were always aligned with the Carters. Bryant grew up in the same apartment complex as Jay-Z’s former business partner Damon Dash, which helped her land an internship with Roc-A-Fella in 1999. Grant worked his way up from an internship he landed with Beyoncé’s publicist.

“Nobody knew I was there, no one was expecting me. They were like, ‘Who are you?’” Bryant recalled to Fortune of her start at Roc-A-Fella. “He finally comes in maybe like an hour later and he’s like, ‘Oh, yes, this is Shari. She’s from my building, and make sure that she learns everything that’s going on.’”

While she was determined to learn everything she could about the music industry, Bryant had no idea she would be leading Jay-Z’s full-service management, music publishing, and entertainment company 20 years later. However, she was aware of the representation she was providing as a Black woman.

“When I walked into that company in 1999, I never looked back, because I was able to see women that look like me, and it made me feel a sense of belonging,” Bryant said. “I saw my mother, I saw my aunt. Not literally, but that’s what the representations stood for me at that time.”

After interning with Roc-A-Fella, Bryant went on to hold executive titles at major labels like Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic Records, and Alamo Records before joining Jay-Z at Roc Nation.

Grant, a Bronx native, got his start interning for Beyoncé’s longtime publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure. After treating the internship like “a real job,” Grant eventually was introduced to Bey’s father, Matthew Knowles, and became the singer’s tour manager on her “Dangerously in Love” tour.

After serving as tour manager for each member of Destiny’s Child and other artists along with some A&R work, he later met Jay-Z, Jay Brown, and Ty Ty Smith, who served as mentors. In 2019, Grant joined Bryant as co-president, where they report to Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez and co-founders Jay Brown and Jay-Z.

“We were given the autonomy to reshape it for what we felt like it should look and feel like, and with that clean slate, it was a lot of just signing really early, emerging talent,” Bryant told Essence in 2023.

After decades of grinding their way to the C-suite, the Roc Nation presidents offered some advice to aspiring artists and music executives.

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” Bryant says. “You gotta be hustling as hard as us because we are working 24/7.”

“It still boils down to being authentic to what you want and who you are,” Grant says. “Actually studying and perfecting and obsessing over what it is that you want to do in your career and how, and just perfecting the art.”

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