Why heads of creator marketing are the new power brokers

By Leah Marshall, Vice President, Digital & Influencer Marketing at ANA

In May, the investment platform Cherub named Nadya Okamoto as its first Chief Creator Officer. It may sound like a niche title today, but my bet is that heads of creator marketing will soon become highly sought-after and essential marketing roles. Creators shape culture, drive purchases, and command attention at levels that traditional media channels envy. As brands pour more and more resources into creator partnerships, they’re starting to realize something critical: creator strategy is too important to live in a single department.

Today’s creator marketing leaders often sit within social, influencer, or brand teams. Tomorrow’s creator marketing leaders will sit at the center of everything. They’ll connect the dots across media, communications, PR, brand, social, commerce, AI, and product teams. They’ll be responsible for transforming creators from a singular campaign tactic into a company-wide growth engine. Creator marketing has become the flywheel that powers content, community, credibility, discovery, and commerce all at once. Marketers who know how to harness creators across the entire marketing organization will be marketing’s new power brokers and the brands that recognize this early will have a major competitive advantage.

Bio: As Vice President, Digital & Influencer Marketing at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Leah Marshall leads Conference and event programming, new thought leadership, and industry initiatives in creator, digital, and social media marketing. Prior, she served as Director of Development at WOMMA (acquired by the ANA in 2018), where she managed sponsorships, new membership development, and strategic partnerships for the social media marketing association.  Previously, Leah served as Director of Development at Chicago Ideas Week, where she oversaw relationships with 60+ corporate, foundation, and global media partners that collectively contributed over 5 million dollars in cash and in-kind support annually. Leah also managed government, corporate, and foundation relations for Teach For America Chicago and spent a decade working in urban education reform at the classroom, charter management, and administrative levels.