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Media Veteran Sean Atkins Joins Jellysmack as President

Jellysmack, a company that optimizes the distribution of creator videos and other content, has tapped Sean Atkins as president.

Atkins has served as an official adviser to Jellysmack since 2019. He brings more than two decades of experience to Jellysmack after previous stints as CEO of RTL Group’s Digital Video Group, president of MTV, chief digital officer for Discovery, and SVP digital initiatives and new media programming for HBO.

In his new role at Jellysmack, Atkins is tasked with expanding the company’s creator program as well as its media partner program, which is designed to help intellectual-property owners generate new revenue from their content libraries. In addition, under Atkins’ leadership, Jellysmack will be launching the new Marquee Program to help public personalities create and distribute video content. He will also be overseeing global marketing as well as the teams that run brand, performance and advertising partnerships at the L.A.-based company.

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Atkins, commenting on joining the company full-time, said, “Jellysmack combines all the trends I’ve worked on in my career: direct-to-consumer, AI-enabled production and distribution, data-driven marketing, and global talent enablement.” He added, “I’ve always believed in the power of digital media and in the voice of creators, but this is such an exciting time for the creator economy. Now that monetization is happening across multiple platforms, the industry is rapidly maturing into something sustainable and scalable.”

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“Sean joins us at a milestone moment for the creator economy,” Jellysmack co-founder and co-CEO Michael Philippe said in a statement. “It’s similar to a decade ago when top leadership at huge media conglomerates expanded into emerging areas like consumer internet, streaming and podcasting, all of which are areas where Sean was a critical senior leader.”

Founded in 2016, Jellysmack has partnerships with more than 300 top creators, including MrBeast, PewDiePie, Karina Garcia, Bailey Sarian, Patrick Starrr, Nas Daily and Phil DeFranco. The company says it distributes creator-made video content to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. In addition, it operates its own original content channels in beauty (“Beauty Studio”), soccer (“Oh My Goal”) and gaming (“Gamology”). All told, Jellysmack-managed content generates 10 billion global monthly video views and has a cross-platform reach of 125 million unique U.S. users, according to the company.

This May, SoftBank made a “nine-figure” investment in Jellysmack, which the company said gives it a valuation of more than $1 billion.

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