E161 Ashley Sonlin: Unlocking LinkedIn for Creators

Ashley Sonlin is a digital marketer with a sharp eye for what drives engagement.

She began her career as a celebrity talent manager, working with multi-platinum, Grammy-winning artists, then moved into the creator economy, leading influencer campaigns for brands like McDonald’s, Xfinity, and Macy’s at Influential. While earning her MBA at Northwestern Kellogg, she built a TikTok following of 500K+ and 175M+ views, and today, she’s a Senior Content Strategist at Influent, where she builds LinkedIn thought leadership for top CEOs and founders.

E160 Jeff Shardell: How a Brand Stays Humble

Prior to founding Humble and moving to Taos, Jeff Shardell spent his career living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His last company was Google where he was Director of Business Development. There, he helped build their strategic partnerships team and rode the rollercoaster from an early stage start-up to one of the most successful tech companies in history.

Prior to that, he was at a number of Internet startups, including co-founder of Gloss.com which was sold to Estee Lauder and at Netscape, the original browser company. Jeff's passions include storm chasing, playing guitar, surfing and camping with his 8-year old son.

E159 Christian Muche: Defining What is POSSIBLE

Christian Muche is a renowned global executive and business strategist operating at the intersection of the digital, marketing, technology, and event industries. Muche has worked with global brands and executives, including AOL, YAHOO, and FIFA, to bring successful results. He was the Co-Founder of DMEXCO which has become the leading and most international digital marketing event in the world. Seeing a gap in the marketing community, he believed the time had come for a new event experience created specifically for the entire marketing world which is POSSIBLE.

E158 Nii Ahene: How to cover the creator economy

Nii A. Ahene is the founder and managing director of Net Influencer, a website dedicated to offering insights into the influencer marketing industry. Together with its newsletter, Influencer Weekly, Net Influencer provides news, commentary, and analysis of the events shaping the creator and influencer marketing space.

Through interviews with startups, influencers, brands, and platforms, Nii and his team explore how influencer marketing is being effectively used to benefit businesses and personal brands alike.

E157 Sarah Adam: Creating a long-term fit for both the brand and creator

With a strong passion for Partnerships and Marketing, Sarah Adam has over 10 years experience in various B2C and B2B SaaS Marketing roles, from PR, Field Marketing and Content to Partner Marketing and Influencer Marketing. Today, Sarah heads Partnerships and Influencer Marketing at Wix, focusing on Wix's end-to-end web creation platform for Agencies and Enterprises, called Wix Studio. 

E156 How Charles Haynes Became The King of Niches

Charles Haynes is the founder and managing director of Ziggurat XYZ -- representing the world’s top factual entertainment creators including industry leaders like James Hoffmann, a globally celebrated coffee expert; Matt Parker (Stand-up Maths), whose mathematical storytelling captivates millions; aeronautical engineer Xyla Foxlin, whose creative projects inspire young makers and women in STEM; Answer in Progress, who explores life’s big questions through curiosity and humor; and, pop culture commentator and comedian Carley Thorne (uncarley) among many others.

Previously Charles worked as a technology consultant and in publishing, becoming acquainted with the first forays into eBooks and digitization. And prior to that, he worked on comedy feature film 'A Cock and Bull Story' and the Silver Bear-award winning documentary 'Road to Guantanamo'. A failed comedian and would-be filmmaker, Charles also gardens.

E155 Phoebe Bain: Why Newsletters are Having More Than a Moment

Phoebe Bain is currently the Business & Finance Section Editor at ⁠1440⁠. In October 2024, she launched 1440's second-ever newsletter product, 1440 Business & Finance: a newsletter that provides more than 200,000 readers with the foundational knowledge they need to understand today's business news.

Previously, she served as a senior reporter at Ad Age covering DTC brands, influencer marketing, and more. She was an early employee at Morning Brew, where she founded Marketing Brew, a newsletter and vertical covering the most important news in the marketing industry. Before rolling out Marketing Brew, Phoebe wrote for Social Media Today under Industry Dive, and worked on the social media editing desk for Business Insider.

E154 Kyle Harris: Never lose sight of the goal

Kyle Harris has spent the last decade turning social media into a business growth engine. His journey started in the early days of digital marketing, building a strong following on Twitter and becoming a standout on Stickam, a live-streaming platform where he hosted a weekly show for nearly 1,000 engaged viewers. That ability to capture attention and create community set the foundation for what came next.

In 2013, he moved to Las Vegas and quickly tapped into the rise of Vine, growing a large audience and recognizing the power of influencer marketing before most brands caught on. By 2014, he became Social Media Director at the Stratosphere Hotel, where he launched the hotel’s first influencer campaign—leveraging his Vine network to create buzz and drive engagement. He also introduced live streaming as a marketing tool, broadcasting the hotel’s SkyJump experience via Periscope, long before live video became mainstream.

His career expanded across industries, refining his expertise in strategy, content, and analytics. That led him to work with Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer, where he helped scale Taffer’s digital presence, facilitated his connection with Gary Vaynerchuk for one of The Ask Gary Vee Show’s highest-performing episodes, and developed a crossover campaign between Bar Rescue and SHOWTIME’s Shameless—a collaboration that earned a Shorty Award nomination.

E153 Brittany Ratelle Give Us Free Legal Advice

Brittany Ratelle is a practicing business and IP lawyer with more than a decade of experience advising creators, social-first brands and agencies in the influencer marketing and digital media space. Brittany also creates content herself as a legal “edutainer” and focuses on making business legal information relatable and accessible to modern entrepreneurs. She has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs protect and grow their brands and has worked with the Bucket List Family, Cassey Ho, Sharon Says So, Hope Scope, Glo Atanmo, Not Enough Nelsons, Dayna Bolden, Devan and Collins Key,  and others.

She regularly works on startup docs, sponsorship deals, talent representation contracts, licensing agreements, copyrights, trademarks, joint product collaborations, brand protection, product launches, and preparing for investment and exits. 

With a background in PR, marketing, and law, Brittany helps modern entrepreneurs navigate the fast-changing digital landscape without losing their minds (or sense of humor). Brittany is a fierce advocate for creators and is on a mission to empower them to negotiate better deals, diversify their revenue streams, and get their fair share of the creator economy pie. She believes creators are the media companies of the future and should act (and be treated) like it. She serves as fractional outside counsel to 6 & 7-figure creators and also provides DIY legal resources through templates, courses, and legal kits at the Creative Contracts® shop. 

She lives with her hunky husband and four kiddos in her hometown of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

E152 V Spehar: Good, Bad and Expensive Money

V Spehar is an award winning digital journalist, TikTok personality and podcaster. Spehar launched UnderTheDeskNews with the aim to make news media less intimidating and easier to understand and rapidly amassed a collective 4 million subscribers to their various social media platforms.

Their original reporting has won them one on one interviews with Vice President Kamala Harris, President Biden, President Obama, Sec. Buttigeig, Sec. Austin, Sec. Blinken as well as several members of the House & Senate. They covered the 2024 DNC as the official digital streamer, the Paris Olympics in partnership with TikTok. In addition they have lent their talents in reporting to serve as a field correspondent and host for LATimes, Washington Post, and NBC News.

V has received a special achievement Webby for their concise and compassionate reporting and was a finalist for a GLAAD media award. They were named a MediaWise Ambassador by the Poynter Institute and a RISE25 ambassador for digital excellence by Mozilla.

They currently host the podcast “American Fever Dream” with Betches media, release a twice weekly Substack, and dozens of short form video explainers on the day's news in a kind way from a safe space, and are working on a book with Zando Publishing to be released early 2026.