PARTNERS
CRAIG JACOBSON, Partner
Craig Jacobson is a premier corporate, media and entertainment lawyer and experienced business strategist. He is one of the three founders of Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush & Kaller, LLP, a firm whose practice encompasses media, motion pictures, television, streaming music and emerging digital endeavors.
Craig has advised the CEOs and founders of some of the largest media and technology companies globally. He currently serves on the boards of the Expedia Corporation and Charter Communications. He previously served as a board member for Ticketmaster, Eventful, and Aver Media. Craig is also a founder, along with Imagine Entertainment, Discovery Communication and ITV, of New Form Digital, a pioneer in short form digital programming.
Craig received his B.A. from Brown University and his J.D. from George Washington University. With his wife, Lynn, the Jacobsons have endowed a scholarship at Brown and are supporters of the Los Angeles chapters of KIPP and Teach for America. They live in Santa Monica, CA and are avid collectors of contemporary art.
JASON RAPP, Partner
Jason Rapp is an experienced corporate M&A executive and an accomplished operator of and investor in digital media companies. Before co-founding Whisper, Jason was the Managing Director and Partner at Science Inc., the Santa Monica, California investment firm that helped to build Dollar Shave Club (sold to Unilever) FameBit (sold to Google) and many other companies.
As an operator, Jason has run traditional media operations and disruptive new start-ups. As an investor and strategy executive, has executed complex media partnerships and over a billion dollars in M&A transactions.
Jason was a senior executive in Barry Diller's IAC corporation (Nasdaq:IACI), having run the M&A group and then as CEO of Gifts.com, the leading gift recommendation engine. Before joining IAC, Jason was an executive at The New York Times company (NYSE:NYT).
Jason received an MBA degree from Columbia University and an AB degree from Duke University. A Pittsburgh native (and New Yorker at heart), he lives in Santa Monica and serves on the LA committee of Human Rights Watch.
Jason is a Registered Representative of Finalis Securities, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC.
ED WILSON, Partner
Ed Wilson is an entrepreneurial media executive who moves seamlessly between traditional and emerging media and gracefully from the executive boardroom to the free-thinking space of content and talent development.
In March 2020, Wilson was named Executive Chairman of two Apollo Investment Corp. portfolio companies: CoxReps, the country’s leading national television representative company, and Gamut, a digital advertising organization. He is a sought-after advisor in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector, serving on the Board of ATAC, a publicly-traded SPAC focused on the TMT space, and as a partner at Whisper Advisors, the boutique advisory and banking firm.
Across his various roles, Wilson draws on deep relationships developed over a nearly two decade span when he served as President of FOX Television Network, NBC Enterprises and CBS Enterprises, as well as President of Tribune Broadcasting and Chief Revenue Officer of Tribune Corp.
Wilson is also Executive Chairman of NPACT, the leading trade organization for non-fiction production companies, and the founder of Dreamcatcher Media.
In the educational and philanthropic realm, Wilson served as a Member of the Board of Trustees of Southern Methodist University for 12 years and continues to serve on the Executive Board of the Cox School of Business there. He is also on the Advisory Board at the Walton Business School at the University of Arkansas.
A native of Rison, Arkansas and University of Arkansas alumnus (BS/BA Finance), Wilson resides in Los Angeles.