The perks of being a creator executive

Meet your newest creator-in-chief.

Nadya Okamoto first made her presence known online as the Gen Z co-founder of women’s healthcare brand August, and as an outspoken creator with more than 4 million followers on TikTok. As of this month, she’s also the co-founder and CMO of the social networking and events platform Pie.

Okamoto first began posting on TikTok after a funding round for August where it became clear that having an influencer co-founder could help scale the company, she told us. As August has grown its national retail presence in recent years, Okamoto has made an effort to separate her creator persona from the brand, she said; at the same time, she’s been exploring community-building through initiatives like her run club, Zoomies, which is hosted on Pie. That’s how she first became part of the Pie creator rewards program, which led to an offer to join in an advisory role—and eventually a more permanent executive title.

Andy Dunn, founder of Pie, said it was Okamoto’s brand- and audience-building experience in addition to her experience as a young creator and entrepreneur that prompted the decision to bring her on board in a more formal capacity.

“Most CMOs are 55,” he said. “They sit down in a boardroom with a study about Gen Z…And so I think that it takes a little bit of courage to be like, ‘We’re actually gonna hire someone who’s not a [traditional] CMO but who’s an entrepreneur and a movement-builder and give them the keys to the brand.’”

We spoke with Dunn and Okamoto about the next phase of CMO leadership and why the best marketing lessons may come from creator experience.

Creator Marketing Officer

Dunn, who co-founded the clothing retailer Bonobos before Pie, said he’s witnessed how increasingly difficult it’s become to navigate, not to mention remain relevant on, social media. Today, he said, “People don’t really trust brands; they trust individuals”; Okamoto’s popularity online, he noted, is a prime example of that.

This isn’t Okamoto’s first C-suite title. She’s also chief creator officer at the investment platform Cherub, although Okamoto clarified that it’s only an advisory position. According to Dunn, Okamoto’s role at Pie differs from some of the perhaps more ornamental C-suite positions creators have received in recent months.

“We never would have brought someone in to be a co-founder and CMO just because they were a content creator,” he said. “They had to be a movement builder and a brand builder, too.”

As Pie co-founder and CMO, Okamoto said she works full-time for the brand, using her platform to “introduce Pie to the world” and solicit feedback from her followers that could help drive product decisions with content through organic, word-of-mouth tactics, including day-in-the-life videos and office tours.

“Everything in my career, whether it was working in politics or nonprofits or at a CPG brand, it’s all about building awareness and brand,” she said. “I’m doing that same thing here.”

Okamoto said she’s realized that many members of her audience have followed her to learn how to build a business or generate a brand community, making the content shift to focus on Pie feel relatively seamless and organic. Her success on social comes amid growing interest in employee-made content, which brands like Staples, Starbucks, and Gap have recently embraced and, in some cases, formalized through employee-creator programs.

Okamoto told us she views adaptability as key to resonating with younger audiences and not just replicating marketing tactics because they worked in the past or for another brand. So far in her tenure, Okamoto said Pie has begun compensating creators with recurring events on the platform and onboarding interns who have never hosted a public event before.

Testing and learning is a crucial strategy for any CMO—the difference may be that Okamoto isn’t afraid to try and fail on camera.

“I get very excited by guerrilla marketing, the sort of PR-stunty, ‘Let’s try things and truly throw spaghetti at a wall, see what sticks, run with it, and continue to iterate,” she said. “You just try things, you just post shit, and you see what sticks.”