Patterson will serve as Chief Operating Officer, where she will help define the company's strategy and further strengthen its foundation and creator network.

Patterson is coming from her previous role at IBM, where she served as Executive Director of Marketing and Global Demand Strategy. Here, she rolled out major new operational models that were central to IBM's marketing transformation and its international growth and success. She also served as the Director of Marketing at Shutterstock, where she built the enterprise marketing function, ran marketing for the global innovation consulting firm Fahrenheit 212 (now Frog, part of Capgemini Invent), and has served as Adjunct Faculty in the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University.

As COO, Patterson will be channeling this experience to help scale The Luupe's mission and impact. To date, creators from 50+ countries around the world utilize The Luupe's marketplace for work and insightful resources. There's a huge growth in demand for diverse and authentic content which has fueled work with leading brands such as Peloton, Sweetgreen, Alex and Ani, Facebook, Yardzen, and GoHenry.

"Having been on the brand side my whole career, I know how desperately brands need authentic, diverse content, and just how much of it they need. And at The Luupe, we hear firsthand the challenges women creators are grappling with. Ultimately, the more brands we reach, the more impact we have on these women creators and their livelihoods. The more we build our global creator community, the more we can fulfill the needs brands have. It's a win-win. Both brands and creators need more of what we have to offer, and I'm excited to be playing a part in it."

With Patterson onboard, The Luupe will continue to build out its platform, helping brands and professional photographers work together seamlessly. The Luupe team believes that representation matters and hope to make it easier for brands to find talented women and non-binary creators to work with. Likewise, these creators help brands connect more authentically with their audiences.

"There's no doubt that the creator community will continue to grow and develop in the years to come," says Keren Sachs, Founder & CEO of The Luupe. "We have an incredible opportunity to impact how brands source and create content. Ashley's deep experience across a wide variety of technologies, offerings, and techniques is essential as we take our next steps as a business and as an income-generating tool for creators."