Gabriella Ryan started working in influencer marketing before most brands had a dedicated budget for it. That gives her a perspective the industry needs right now.
Gabriella is Senior Influencer Manager at Leo's (Leo Burnett) and one of the speakers joining us at Social Media Fest 2026 in London this May. She has been working in the influencer space since 2016, back when it was still sitting inside the PR department and gifting was considered a legitimate strategy. She has watched the entire creator economy grow up in real time, across in-house brands and agencies, and she has built influencer practices at multiple organisations where she was the first person in the role. That means she knows what it looks like to introduce influencer marketing to a business that does not yet understand it, make the commercial case from scratch, and build something that actually delivers.
Her session as part of a panel, The Business of Influence, cuts straight to the problem that is still holding so many brands back: creators are treated as an afterthought. They are brought in at the end of a campaign when the brief is locked, the budget is nearly gone, and the creative direction has already been decided. Gabriella's argument is that this is precisely why so much influencer content is forgettable.
The alternative she advocates for is treating creators as genuine creative partners from the very beginning of the process, building long-term communities rather than one-off activations, and stopping the habit of loading twenty brand messages into a single creator post. It also means measuring what actually matters, not just what is easy to put in a slide.
What has stood out to her most in the last year? She loves watching brands respond to cultural moments in ways that genuinely land. She cites IKEA's punch-the-monkey content series response and the stolen KitKat brand responses as recent examples of brands that got it exactly right. Fast, sharp, and actually funny.
Looking at where the industry is heading, she sees three significant shifts shaping the next few years. First, a move away from fake authenticity toward what she calls believable credibility, with more surprising brand partnerships and content that genuinely earns its place in the feed. Second, AI lightening the workload across the industry, but with people and their stories remaining the thing that actually matters. Third, the future belonging to brands that embrace creators as long-term partners and take a 360-degree approach that connects the real world with the digital.
Her one piece of advice to fellow social media marketers is as sharp as her session title: you cannot be authentic with twenty brand messages. Let creators create.
For the future of social media, she wants to see brands setting creator budgets at the very start of the creative process rather than the very end, and the practice of bringing creators in as consultants and advisors becoming mainstream rather than the exception.
What to expect from her on the panel session: A practical framework covering creator identification, outreach, briefing, production, and measurement, plus an honest conversation about why authenticity has become a meaningless word and what it actually takes to get it back.
"You can't be 'authentic' with 20 brand messages. Let creators create."
Want to hear more from Gabriella? Join us at Social Media Fest, London. 19 and 20 May. Get your tickets at socialday.co.uk