Want to build an empire? Then start studying Dany Garcia.

The founder of The Garcia Companies is living proof that it’s possible to run multiple businesses—successfully—all at once. Her portfolio includes brands in entertainment, sports, food, business, and fitness. She’s co-owner of the UFL, formerly XFL (making her the first woman in the U.S. to own an equal or majority stake in a professional sports league), and recently launched a new fashion brand, GSTQ. She also produces blockbuster films with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

But how does the consummate multi-hyphenate manage her empire?

Born an Entrepreneur

Garcia grew up in Belleville, New Jersey, the daughter of Cuban immigrants. Her family struggled, and even at a young age, she made a promise to herself to become a millionaire with the understanding that wealth could change her family members’ lives.

At the age of 12, she got her first job managing an eight-stable horse barn.

“We talk about entrepreneurs being born. Well, I think many of them were probably like me, very angsty in their young age and sort of looking at the world differently and not understanding why things happen the way they happen,” she says.

“We talk about entrepreneurs being born. Well, I think many of them were probably like me, very angsty in their young age and sort of looking at the world differently and not understanding why things happen the way they happen.”

After high school, she enrolled at the University of Miami, where she met her first husband, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is now her business partner. In 1992, she graduated with a degree in International Finance and Marketing and went to work for Merrill Lynch.

“All along that period, my approach has always been building enterprise. My decision to go into finance was because the time I spend there is going to give me a fantastic understanding of what I need for companies to be built, fundamentally.”

A decade later, she began the first of several successful ventures when she founded JDM Partners, LLC, a private wealth management firm. She spent the following decade growing her brand and her portfolio, turning problems into profit.

Rebranding ‘The Rock’

In 2008, Johnson and Garcia decided to divorce amicably. At the time, Johnson was trying to transition his career from professional wrestling to acting without much success. He asked Garcia to manage him, and she got to work helping to rebrand the former wrestler.

But instead of simply creating a new brand for Johnson, she built a suite of corporations around him. They founded Seven Bucks Productions in 2012, which produces Johnson’s movies, as well as content for TV, digital platforms, and emerging technologies. It includes Seven Bucks Creative and Seven Bucks Digital Studios.

She later founded her multiplatform enterprise, The Garcia Companies, a global brand development and diverse management company that builds a portfolio of innovative, consumer-facing corporations through development, investment, or acquisitions. The vast portfolio includes the Seven Bucks brands, Athleticon, Acorns, and Atom Tickets as well as TGC Management, which includes Johnson and actor Henry Cavill.

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Building an Entertainment Empire

Garcia and Johnson started producing films to give them creative control over Johnson’s career. Garcia says it allowed them to inject their philosophical point of view into filmmaking.

That point of view has 2 tenets. First, every creative piece has to speak to the bottom line before they even begin filming. Second and most important is that the audience comes first.

“So anything creative, we never just do it for ourselves,” she says. “We make the decision as if the audience member is sitting right there next to us. That has allowed us to make decisions that have led to global success.”

“We make the decision as if the audience member is sitting right there next to us. That has allowed us to make decisions that have led to global success.”

When they first began, Garcia was coming from a finance background, and Johnson was fresh from the WWE. Their backgrounds and method were a hard sell for studios, and so they committed themselves to overdelivering on every film they made.

“So we had to earn every step, every comment, every note that went into a script—we had to earn by having incredible success but also by giving a perspective and a point of view that no one had ever heard before,” Garcia says.

Recently, they produced Disney’s Jungle Cruise. In 2022, they released Black Adam, a tentpole movie in the DC franchise. They have also produced hit TV shows for HBO, BET, NBC, and Disney+.

“When we talk about obsession, you have to become obsessed with your clients’ success and their vision,” Garcia says.

“When we talk about obsession, you have to become obsessed with your clients’ success and their vision,”

In 2020, Garcia was awarded the Outstanding Film Producer Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

Pulling the Portfolio Together

Garcia acknowledges that her portfolio seems disparate. But she points out one commonality: an immersive, positive experience for her audience.

For example, now that she has a majority stake in the once-bankrupt XFL, she plans on taking it to another level, completely immersing the audience in each football game. in 2024 the XFL merged with fellow Spring league USFL to create the United Football League.

“We were looking at an opportunity to be the stewards of football in a 360 sort of viewpoint, multidimensionally looking at everything that surrounds football and taking responsibility for that,” Garcia says. “So how are the athletes experiencing it? And how are the fans? How are our partners, our sponsors, our production partners? And we have a very specific point of view on how the storytelling and the interaction and how the UFL should be experienced and not watched.”

She is also looking for brands that can help raise up the others. “I look for my companies to elevate the other companies that are within the portfolio. That’s really important to me—it builds community, it builds a sense, and it gives me one plus one equal in three, or maybe five or 10, which would be great.”

She gives an example: Zoa is an energy drink brand and product made from natural ingredients. Promoted by Johnson, it’s the fastest-growing energy drink in the U.S. Its message of positivity and healthy living carries over to the UFL, where Zoa could be a sponsor. With Seven Bucks, product placement of Zoa in the upcoming Black Adam, starring Johnson, is also a possibility.

So each brand helps the other in one way or another, promoting the overarching theme of Garcia’s companies: positivity.

“If you actually go up, I would say 50,000 feet, you will see that there are strong similarities. There’s a strong philosophical arc. There’s a tone that’s very similar within all the companies. So that’s going to be very important. Any addition is going to complement what’s already in the portfolio and cross-complement,” she says.

Keeping Perspective With So Many Companies

“I try never to get too much into the soup of anything because then I lose my perspective,” Garcia says.

It’s a lesson she learned the hard way after a particularly busy year, where she found herself heavily involved in all of her projects.

“I specifically remember 2016 was an incredible growth year. We ended the year, and my husband and I went to Hawaii in January. And I think I slept on a sofa outside every day for about two weeks straight.”

After that, she says, she got really good at “firing herself,” pulling away from projects before she is pulled too far into the weeds. Once she finds herself focusing too much on one project or when she starts to feel frustration or friction, she knows it’s time to make her exit and give the job to someone who can give 100% to it.

“The last firing of myself was probably from the official role as Dwayne Johnson’s manager,” she says. “I fired myself—he was very gracious—because I needed to move into a strategic advisory position over his enterprise in particular, which is ginormous.”

That’s how she keeps perspective on so many companies while still keeping time for family and self-care. She begins each day with coffee with her husband before heading off to work out for at least an hour. They’re both opportunities to center herself before she begins her day.

“I do a lot of centering. Since I do have such a broad portfolio, being very centered in what my philosophy is and understanding how I want to interact with the world and how I want my companies to interact in the world is very important.”

GSTQ

Most recently, Garcia has released a direct-to-consumer clothing line branded with her personal mantra: GSTQ.

Garcia is also a professional bodybuilder. Finding clothing that fit well and could move with her from one part of her day to another was a challenge.

“Things didn’t fit,” she says. “They were constricting. They were tight. I’m trying to move from one thing into a production meeting to meeting with my fellow CEOs, and I didn’t have clothes that could move with me and also celebrate my athleticism.”

Garcia recognized a gap she could fill, where polished looks meet athletic comfort.

Before a single stitch of clothing was designed, she and her team worked on what they called the GSTQ bible, the fundamental principles of the brand and the experience they wanted the customer to have with their clothing.

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Next Steps for the Queen

Garcia isn’t finished building her empire yet.

“All of my companies, while they are very varied, have one thing in common. They’re all consumer-facing. They all have relationships with the audience or consumer. So that means that part of my responsibility is actually staying in tune to the consumer in the audience.”

“All of my companies, while they are very varied, have one thing in common. They’re all consumer-facing.”

It all goes back to how differently Garcia looks at business and building her portfolio. “I can look at what these companies are doing and understand where they need to be.”

It’s a unique perspective she’s always had, one that she realizes now is her biggest asset. When we asked her what advice she would give herself as a child?

“I would say to myself at age 10: You are going to be different for the rest of your life. And that’s going to be your superpower.”