Elberse on the Harvard campus.
Photographer: Tara Rice for Bloomberg BusinessweekThe $12,000 Harvard Class Celebrities Are Fighting to Get Into
Business school professor Anita Elberse teaches celebrities how to build empires—and publishes case studies on everyone from David Beckham to MrBeast.
A swarm of students waits in the classroom at Harvard Business School’s McCollum Hall to take selfies with Anita Elberse. They’ve just finished her sought-after executive education course, and though a bunch of big names are among the most recent batch of grads—skiing icon Mikaela Shiffrin, ex-Daily Show comedian Roy Wood Jr., FIFA World Cup winner Juan Mata—Elberse is evidently the bigger star on campus. “She’s a very popular lady right now,” says one student after angling for a shot.
Elberse, a Nike-wearing scholar of marketing, is best known for her course The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports—or #BEMS to its alumni who post about it on Instagram and LinkedIn. The four-day, $12,000 program, an elective open to professionals not enrolled at HBS, has become a blockbuster for the university. Elberse’s case studies, ranging from David Beckham’s brand management to Beyoncé’s music launch strategies, are often announced like an album drop on social media. Which is why, along with execs from Hollywood and Madison Avenue, stars such as Channing Tatum and LL Cool J have signed up, hoping to build the next celebrity business empire.