A graduate of Boston University with a degree specializing in working with the disabled, Katz originally started his career with aspirations of being a stand-up comedian in Beantown, and it was there that he performed with such established artists as Denis Leary, Bob Goldthwait, and Steven Wright; while also managing various comedy clubs in the New England area for over a decade. In the late 80's and early 90's, he decided to quit performing and move to New York City, opening up the Boston Comedy Club in the heart of Greenwich Village. Simultaneously, he started his own management company and immediately landed 4 clients on Saturday Night Live. This gave him the confidence to expand his operation to Los Angeles where he soon after signed a 4 year overall executive producer deal with Disney to develop television shows. After 15 successful years at the helm of his own company, in 2003 Katz merged his business with New Wave Entertainment and over the next 8 years, helped build it into a respected full service talent management, digital distribution, and TV/film production company with over 25 managers, producers, and development executives. At the end of 2011, Katz left NWE to go back to running his own company again, this time under the banner of Barry Katz Entertainment. Katz is universally known for introducing Hollywood to some of the most extraordinary comedy artists in the business-including Dave Chappelle, Jay Mohr, Anthony Clark, Bill Burr, Wanda Sykes, Nick Swardson, Dane Cook, Tracy Morgan, Frank Caliendo, Darrell Hammond, Whitney Cummings, and Louie CK. In the television world, he has brokered an unprecedented 100 TV development deals during his career while creating three television shows of his own .
