The landscape of digital influence is undergoing a fundamental transformation, shifting away from the legacy metrics that once defined success in the social media era. For over a decade, the "follower count" served as the primary currency for brands and creators alike, acting as a shorthand for reach, relevance, and market power. However, as algorithmic discovery replaces the traditional social graph, the industry is grappling with a new reality: having a million followers no longer guarantees a million views, let alone meaningful engagement.
Cami Tellez, the 29-year-old marketing strategist and entrepreneur who previously disrupted the intimates industry, is now positioning herself at the forefront of this structural shift. Her latest venture, Devotion, was conceived as a direct response to the "post-follower era," aiming to rebuild the infrastructure of creator marketing for a world where content quality and algorithmic resonance outweigh static audience sizes.
In a significant move to scale these ambitions, Tellez announced on Friday that Devotion has appointed Ed Victori as its first chief operating officer. The hire comes after a year of rapid internal growth for the startup and signals a transition from the foundational phase of the company to a period of aggressive operational acceleration. Victori, a seasoned executive with a deep pedigree in Gen Z marketing and agency operations, joins Devotion at a time when the broader advertising industry is desperate for new frameworks to navigate the volatility of modern social platforms.
A New Framework for the Post-Follower Era
The concept of the "post-follower era" is central to Devotion’s mission. In the early days of influencer marketing, platforms like Instagram and Twitter operated on a linear model: a user followed an account, and that account’s content appeared in the user’s feed. For brands, this made influencer selection a relatively straightforward exercise in mathematics. More followers meant more "impressions," which theoretically led to higher brand awareness.
However, the rise of TikTok and the subsequent pivot of Meta and Google toward interest-based algorithms have broken this model. Today, a creator with ten million followers may see their latest video struggle to reach a fraction of that audience if the algorithm does not deem it immediately engaging. Conversely, a creator with a few hundred followers can go viral globally overnight. This unpredictability has left many brands in a state of flux, still paying premium rates for follower counts that no longer translate to guaranteed distribution.
Tellez, who co-founded the Gen Z-focused underwear brand Parade in 2019, witnessed this shift firsthand. Under her leadership, Parade became a case study in community-led growth, leveraging a massive network of "micro-advocates" rather than relying solely on traditional celebrity endorsements. By the time she exited the company, Tellez had cemented her reputation as a visionary who understood the nuances of digital community better than most established CMOs.
With Devotion, Tellez is attempting to codify the strategies that made her successful at Parade into a scalable platform. The goal is to move the industry toward a more meritocratic and data-driven approach to creator partnerships—one that values the creator’s ability to drive specific outcomes rather than their ability to accumulate a passive following.
Strategic Leadership and Operational Scaling
The appointment of Ed Victori as COO is a strategic cornerstone for Devotion’s next chapter. Victori’s background provides a unique bridge between the world of high-growth startups and the established talent and consulting industries. He joins Devotion from United Talent Agency (UTA), one of the "big three" agencies in Hollywood, which has increasingly focused on the creator economy as a core pillar of its business.
Victori’s path to UTA was paved by his role at JUV Consulting, a highly influential firm specializing in Gen Z trends and strategy. As the COO of JUV, Victori was instrumental in professionalizing the agency’s operations and navigating its eventual acquisition by UTA. His experience in leading a boutique, youth-focused firm through a major corporate integration gives him a rare perspective on how to maintain the agility of a startup while building the rigorous systems required for large-scale enterprise partnerships.
According to Tellez, Victori’s arrival is intended to accelerate Devotion’s efforts to modernize creator marketing. While Tellez provides the visionary brand-building expertise and co-founder and CEO Jon Kroopf brings technical and platform-specific knowledge, Victori is expected to handle the operational complexities of a company that is growing at a breakneck pace.
Jon Kroopf’s background is equally vital to the Devotion story. Before co-founding the firm with Tellez, Kroopf held pivotal roles at TikTok and CreatorIQ. His time at TikTok provided him with a front-row seat to the birth of the algorithmic feed, while his experience at CreatorIQ—a leading influencer marketing software platform—gave him insight into the technological pain points that brands face when trying to manage creator relationships at scale. Together, the leadership team represents a convergence of brand intuition, platform mechanics, and operational excellence.
The Evolution of Creator Marketing
The hiring of a COO of Victori’s caliber reflects a broader trend in the marketing technology sector. As the "creator economy" matures, the "Wild West" era of informal deals and vanity metrics is coming to an end. Brands are under increasing pressure to prove the return on investment (ROI) of their social media spend, and the tools they use must be more sophisticated than the spreadsheets and manual outreach of the past.
Devotion’s rapid growth over the last year suggests that there is a significant appetite for this new approach. By focusing on the "post-follower" reality, the company is positioning itself as a necessary utility for brands that have realized their old playbooks are obsolete. This involves not just finding the right creators, but understanding the specific nuances of how content travels through different algorithmic ecosystems.
The industry is currently seeing a shift from "influencers"—individuals who trade on their personal fame—to "creators"—individuals who are valued for their production skills, storytelling ability, and community resonance. In the post-follower era, a creator’s value lies in their ability to produce content that the algorithm wants to distribute. Devotion’s platform aims to identify these creators and facilitate partnerships that feel organic to the platform rather than like traditional advertisements.
Victori’s role will involve overseeing the day-to-day execution of this vision, ensuring that Devotion’s internal systems can support its expanding client base. As the company moves out of its initial launch phase, the focus will likely shift toward deepening its technological capabilities and expanding its footprint within the marketing departments of major consumer brands.
The Significance of the Move
For the broader marketing community, the growth of Devotion and the high-profile recruitment of Ed Victori serve as a signal that the rules of engagement are being rewritten. Tellez’s transition from a brand founder to a platform builder is a natural evolution for a leader who has always prioritized the "why" of consumer behavior over the "what."
At 29, Tellez remains one of the most watched figures in the industry. Her ability to attract talent like Kroopf and Victori suggests that Devotion is not merely a "passion project" following her success at Parade, but a serious attempt to solve one of the most persistent problems in modern advertising.
The "post-follower era" is not a distant future; it is the current reality for every brand trying to capture attention on a smartphone screen. As the volume of content continues to explode and the algorithms that filter that content become more sophisticated, the need for a platform that understands these dynamics becomes paramount.
With Ed Victori now on board as COO, Devotion has the operational leadership necessary to turn its theoretical framework into an industry standard. The company’s trajectory over the coming months will likely be a bellwether for the future of the creator economy, indicating whether the industry is ready to finally let go of the follower count and embrace a more complex, content-driven future.
As Tellez told ADWEEK, the goal is to accelerate the efforts to change how influencer marketing works. With a leadership team that combines the perspectives of the brand, the platform, and the agency, Devotion is uniquely equipped to bridge the gap between the old guard of marketing and the new frontier of digital influence. The industry will be watching closely to see how this "post-follower" vision translates into the next generation of brand-building.
