Maxine Rusbasan (MBA ’21) shares how Stern helped her pivot from entertainment media to private equity at Pophouse, what she uses social media for, and what the legacy artists KISS, ABBA and Cyndi Lauper all have in common.

Maxine Rusbasan (MBA ’21) doesn’t go on social media just for fun. If she sees that a friend is passing through London, where she lives, she reaches out with an invite. “I'm not just scrolling for cute dog videos. It’s a way to connect,” she says. That speaks to her love of building relationships and a proclivity for networking, talents that helped her transition from studio work at AMC Networks to her current role in investor relations.

“I’m a people person. But until I got to Stern, I didn’t realize that was a talent and a strength,” said Maxine. “My role at AMC was more internal focused, and I realized that I hadn’t been flexing my networking skills, so I wanted my next role to be more about relationship building.”

Maxine is an investor relations director at Pophouse, an investment firm with a private equity structure that buys catalogs from legacy artists and then creates a strategy for increasing the value of that catalog.

Pophouse acquired the rights to the American singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper’s music IP and more recently the American rock band, KISS. Pophouse, where Maxine works, is in the IP music business, housed under the parent company, Pophouse Entertainment, which was co-founded by Björn Ulvaeus, one of the Bs in Swedish band ABBA, and Conni Jonsson, who founded EQT Partners AB, one of the largest investment firms in Scandinavia. According to Maxine, after the ABBA Museum opened in Stockholm, Sweden and the Mamma Mia! films came out, the value of the ABBA catalog significantly increased. Inspired, they decided to do the same for other artists.

The added-value initiatives “could be an avatar show, like the one we will have for the rock band KISS. It could be a documentary for other artists or an experience with Pophouse Entertainment,” explained Maxine.

At Pophouse, Maxine is on the fundraising and investor relations team and speaks to investors about the firm’s story. Entertainment media had always been an area she wanted to work in. Earlier in her career she started in production before moving to the studio side. After her undergraduate degree, she moved to New York City where she had spent part of her childhood. She did a brief stint at a strategic communications firm, then joined Marvel working in production finance on set before moving to the studio side with AMC Networks’ finance team. While at AMC, she decided to pursue her MBA through Stern's Langone Part-Time MBA Program.

Stern’s Strength in Entertainment Media is the Draw 
“I wanted an entertainment-focused MBA that I could pursue while still working at AMC Networks,” said Maxine. “Stern was number one in my book.” In addition to the strength of the entertainment and media professors, she also loved the guest lecturers and ad hoc lunches that gave her an inside view into industry. In fact, she enjoyed her entertainment classes so much she became a graduate teaching fellow for Professor Gary Faber, who worked on marketing campaigns for films like Inglourious Basterds. But she cites Professor Amy Webb’s futurist class as one of her favorites and credits it for making her realize that she wanted to work in a role that was adjacent to the entertainment industry.

She decided to pivot to private equity where she could exercise her networking talents. “Ironically, Pophouse was my first conversation,” said Maxine, who was looking to move back to London where her parents live. “My heart very much belongs in the UK.”  

Maxine (left) at Stern’s spring fling

Maxine finished off her Stern MBA during the pandemic and has stayed involved through the London Alumni Regional Committee (LARC), bringing an entertainment bent to programming.

Maxine Rusbasan (center) with other Stern alumni in London

She spends her free time playing tennis, enjoys the TV show Only Murders in the Building and recently read Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, the inspiration for Cabaret. She misses the energy and buzz of NYC, but finds London is more livable. “But I really love them both.”