Creator-Led Agency Expand Co-Lab Launches, Targeting Brands That Want Direct Access to Talent
Natalie Marshall, the creator behind Corporate Natalie (1.4M Instagram, 827K TikTok, 276K LinkedIn), launched Expand Co-Lab on April 5, a creator-led influencer marketing agency aimed at cutting out the middleman between brands and talent. Marshall says the current agency model is broken because firms create separation between brands and creators, often resulting in brands paying large fees to talent they have never spoken to. The global influencer marketing industry is estimated at $32.55 billion in 2025, a 35% jump over 2024, per Influencer Marketing Hub. Marshall has worked with major tech brands and consumer goods companies and previously appeared in a Dunkin' Donuts campaign alongside Will Arnett. She has three full-time employees and was a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.
THE BREAKDOWN
A top creator launching her own agency is a direct challenge to the traditional management model, and it is not the first. For brand partnership managers, creator-owned shops can offer closer access to talent but often come without the contracts, exclusivity protection, or multi-client infrastructure that established agencies provide. The real threat for traditional talent agents is not the agency itself but what it signals: creators with enough scale and brand relationships to own both sides of the deal. Any agency that loses a brand budget to a creator-built alternative should treat it as a signal to deepen service offerings, particularly around exclusivity auditing, content performance guarantees, and multi-platform packaging.
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