Motion Society hires Chanel Simmons to lead US business

Motion Society has hired Chanel Simmons as its Managing Director, U.S. The appointment was first reported by Deadline on 29 September. She will head the company's American operation.

Simmons has worked in the creator economy for more than a decade. That is the business of people who earn a living from online video, audio and social posts. Her most recent roles were at Spotify, Meta and Fullscreen.

At Spotify, she worked on digital content partnerships and onboarding creators, meaning bringing new makers onto the platform and helping them launch. She described her role there as Leading Digital Culture Content Partnerships in a farewell post in August.

At Fullscreen, a network that manages online video talent, she led YouTube syndication. That means placing and licensing videos across different channels to reach wider audiences. She also worked on FaZe Clan's owned channels business and its 50-strong creator roster.

Motion Society is built to serve that world at volume. It works with around 650 creators and distributes more than 30,000 videos each month, according to Deadline. Named creator partners include Jesser, Stephen Sharer and Lizzy Capri.

The organisation is still young. It was founded in 2022 by Martin Belotti, Thomas Subra, Jean-Loup Fraudin and Lucas Falga. Subra is chief executive, Fraudin is chief operating officer, and Falga is chief product officer and engineer. Belotti is himself a creator, behind LADB Restoration.

It now has more than 50 staff. The company says it runs on a proprietary operating system, essentially its own in-house software, to speed up production workflows.

What makes this stand out is the fit. Simmons has sat on the platform side and the talent side. Motion Society now has a US lead who knows both.