It’s been a tumultuous year for OnlyFans, the popular subscription-based social media platform best known for hosting explicit content and offering an online safe haven to the sex workers who create it. In August 2021, the company launched OFTV, a streaming platform featuring safe-for-work content, a move widely seen as an attempt to attract investors and lock down a $1 billion valuation.
Two days later, the company announced that it planned to ban explicit content. After fierce backlash, the company reversed its decision, and its CEO, Tom Stokely resigned the following December. He appointed Amrapali (Ami) Gan, the company’s former head of communications and marketing, as his successor.
This series of events sets the stage for what promises to be a fascinating discussion with OnlyFans CEO Ami Gan and Keily Blair, the company’s chief strategy and operations officer. Both OnlyFans executives will join us onstage for a fireside chat at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18–20 in San Francisco.
There’s plenty more to discuss. From Gan’s plans for moving OnlyFans into the mainstream — and how that might affect its loyal base of content creators (e.g., sex workers) largely responsible for the platform’s rapid growth — to OFTV signing a multiyear content deal with the Sims sisters (the U.K.’s answer to the Kardashians).
We’ll ask about the company’s funding challenges, as many VC firms remain reluctant to invest in a platform known for explicit content. We’re also curious about recent reports that OnlyFans is looking to go public via SPAC.
Ami Gan is the CEO at OnlyFans, the subscription social media platform that facilitates creator and fan connections. Responsible for day-to-day leadership, she works closely with the creator community to help them maximize control over their content. Before becoming CEO, Gan served as the company’s chief marketing and communications officer.
Prior to joining OnlyFans, Gan served as vice president of marketing at Cannabis Cafe, the first cannabis restaurant in the U.S. Earlier in her career, Gan worked as the head of brand communications at Quest Nutrition and for Red Bull Media House focused on brand activation and communications.
As chief strategy and operations officer, Keily Blair formulates, implements and communicates OnlyFans’ strategic initiatives and future goals to users, commercial partners and other key stakeholders (including government, law enforcement and NGOs). A practicing attorney, Blair oversees the enterprise-wide approach to online safety and leads OnlyFans’ communications, human resources, operations and legal functions.
Prior to her role at OnlyFans, Blair served as partner at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, where she led the cyber, privacy and data innovation practice in London. She advised on international privacy, cyber and online safety laws and regulations, and helped clients build effective regulatory relationships, including leading internal and external regulatory investigations.
Before joining Orrick, Blair was a director at PwC, a litigator at two international law firms and external legal counsel for privacy and financial service regulators. A ranked practitioner, she has represented the private sector at the United Nations and the European Criminal Bar Association.
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Lauren Simonds, Khareem Sudlow
