The Social Lights Transforms Agency Structure with Intelligence Focus

Promotes Ali Olson to COO, Taps Gayle Malcolm as VP of Client Success

The Social Lights, a leading social-first marketing agency, today announced a strategic restructure focused on social intelligence and continuing to scale fast-growing influence services alongside key leadership appointments. Ali Olson has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer, joining the agency’s all-female executive leadership team, while Gayle Malcolm has been named vice president of client success.

L to R: Gayle Malcolm and Ali Olson

The moves position the agency to capitalize on social media’s evolution into a comprehensive ecosystem, encompassing everything from user-generated content to consumer insights and social brand narratives.

“Social influence built on relevance, resonance and translating brand equity in new ways. This is the way winning brands combat traditional advertising’s decline in performance,” said Stephanie Schafer, President and Chief Growth Officer of The Social Lights. “These moves allow us to engage in strategic brand partnerships with a differentiated point-of-view that emanates out from social.”

Olson’s promotion to COO comes as she marks her third anniversary with the agency. During her tenure, she has been instrumental in driving operational excellence, resulting in 2.5x growth. She led the agency’s relocation to new headquarters and implemented enterprise-level technology integrations that span social media management, influencer management, project management, collaboration tools and AI software. Olson has also cultivated a culture centered on team wellness while championing expanded total rewards and benefits for employees.

“In the age of AI, agencies that will thrive are those that embrace building an operational backbone as a competitive advantage,” explained Emily Pritchard, founder and CEO of The Social Lights. “Ali’s promotion ensures we can deliver the speed and agility brands need to win in today’s influence-driven landscape.”

Malcolm brings more than two decades of global brand marketing experience to The Social Lights, having held key leadership roles at major retailers like Estée Lauder Companies and Best Buy. Most recently, she served as vice president of performance marketing at Chico’s FAS, where she spearheaded performance marketing initiatives across multiple brands, including Chico’s, White House Black Market and Somas.

Creating an intelligence-driven approach to brand influence

Both leadership appointments help position The Social Lights to capitalize on the growing demand for intelligence-driven brand influence solutions. As enterprise brands allocate more budget to social media than traditional channels, the agency’s new intelligence approach delivers comprehensive insights — from pre-launch consumer sentiment analysis to 13-week reporting cycles that connect social metrics to business outcomes.

The Social Lights’ influence methodology centers on turning influencers into brand storytellers rather than media channels, creating extensions of a brand’s social presence through influencer partnerships, surprise and delight initiatives, proactive engagement and brand partnerships.

The agency’s approach also helps brands generate “social currency” through mutual exchange between brand fandom and creator freedom, resulting in scalable, on-trend influencer partnerships that are engineered for the algorithm and authentic to brands, audiences and influencers.

“Social has evolved into a sophisticated business ecosystem that demands elevated strategic thinking,” explains Schafer. “Our intelligence capabilities ensure brands can move beyond flooding feeds with sponsored content to actively participating in culture through meaningful influence.”

Source: The Social Lights

  Ali Olson, Emily Pritchard, Gayle Malcolm, Stephanie Schafer, The Social Lights