TL;DR

Darkroom has hired Julie Novak as executive leader of its Social Commerce vertical to scale TikTok Shop, live commerce and creator-driven performance. Julie arrives from TikTok and Amazon Live with a proven track record building creator ecosystems and driving revenue via video commerce - experience that will accelerate Darkroom’s push to turn creators, community and short-form video into measurable growth engines for clients.

Why this hire matters

This is not a headcount - it’s a capability lift. Darkroom is a technology-driven growth agency that pairs senior growth teams with an AI-native product approach to commerce. Julie’s appointment signals a step-change in how Darkroom will operationalize creator-led commerce: not as a series of influencer experiments, but as a productized system that stitches short-form video, live commerce, creator operations and measurement into full-funnel growth.

Julie’s background - leading TikTok’s US Haircare & Styling business and scaling Amazon Live creator programs - gives Darkroom instant credibility and playbooks for two of today’s highest-impact social commerce engines. Her experience running creator onboarding, live sales, and category-scale initiatives is precisely the operational skillset brands need to move beyond “viral moments” and toward repeatable revenue.

What Julie brings to the table

Julie Novack arrives with nearly two decades of hands-on experience in video commerce and creator economies:

• TikTok leadership: As US Head of Haircare & Styling at TikTok (since Feb 2024), she led rapid TikTok Shop expansion in the category - driving creator engagement, brand onboarding and live-video sales at scale.

• Amazon Live scale: She led Amazon Live Creator Business during its breakout growth, scaling creator participation from hundreds to tens of thousands and delivering seven-figure livestream revenue on peak days.

• Creator and UGC systems: At Trendio she built scalable creator and UGC programs that supported AI-driven content pipelines and production workflows - a direct fit for Darkroom’s focus on performance creative and automation.

Julie’s perspective is practical and future-facing: “The future of shopping isn't static pages, it's trusted voices showing products in motion. That shift turns shopping into an experience - more social, more credible, and more fun.” That line captures the shift Darkroom is betting on: creators as conversion engines, not just awareness channels.

Her work at Darkroom

Julie will lead Darkroom’s Social Commerce practice with a mandate that reads like a modern product spec:

• Productize TikTok Shop services. Build standardized offerings that bundle creator onboarding, live commerce operations, catalog readiness, and paid+organic distribution.

• Scale creator ecosystems. From creator benches to enterprise creator programs, Julie will set playbooks for sourcing, vetting, onboarding and measuring creators as repeatable assets.

• Operationalize live commerce. Build predictable runways for livestreams that drive measurable sales, not just spikes - integrating pre- and post-live funnels.

• Link creators to performance creative. Integrate UGC and creator output into Darkroom’s AI-powered creative systems so short-form video becomes a testable, measurable input to paid and owned channels.

• Center measurement on revenue. Ruthlessly connect creator activity to attributable outcomes across marketplaces, retail media and DTC funnels.

These priorities echo what modern social commerce needs: systems and measurement, not one-off campaigns. Darkroom’s platform approach - pairing senior teams, commerce engineering and a proprietary AI layer - is designed for exactly this kind of operational maturity.

Why Julie is the right person for today’s social commerce reality

Social commerce success hinges on combining three things: creator ecosystems, product-ready creative, and tight measurement. Julie’s resume shows repeated wins on each front:

• She grew creator programs at platform scale (Amazon Live) and category scale (TikTok).

• She has experience turning live events into verifiable revenue outcomes.

• She understands how to operationalize creator output - building the systems and workflows that make UGC and creator content reliably shoppable rather than episodic.

Darkroom already positions itself to convert creative systems into business outcomes; Julie’s arrival accelerates the agency’s ability to do that specifically inside TikTok Shop, live commerce and creator-first funnels. The hire is both defensive (keeping Darkroom competitive) and offensive (doubling down on a channel that converts when done with product rigor). For brands, that means a partner who can move from “let’s try a creator” to “let’s own a shoppable creator flywheel.”

What clients should expect

Clients working with Darkroom should expect:

• Repeatable playbooks for TikTok Shop launch and scale, including catalog readiness, compliance, creator ops and live commerce playbooks.

• Test-and-scale frameworks that treat creators and short-form assets as experimentable creative inputs tied to ROAS and downstream LTV.

• Integration across channels - turning discoveries on TikTok into measurable lift across Amazon, Walmart, retail media and direct channels.

• AI-accelerated creative that converts raw creator moments into platform-optimized assets while preserving authenticity and proof.

Darkroom’s hiring of Julie is about delivering this stack end to end: creative, creators, commerce ops, and the productized measurement needed to justify scale.

A quick note from leadership

Darkroom’s CEO framed the hire succinctly: Julie’s blend of strategic foresight and proven scale at TikTok and Amazon Live “aligns perfectly with our mission” and will be “instrumental in helping our clients harness the creator economy and TikTok Shop ecosystem to drive performance, creative innovation, and measurable ROI.” That’s the exact operating ethos Darkroom has promoted as an AI-native growth partner.

Join the next wave of social commerce

Julie Novak’s appointment makes Darkroom an even more compelling partner for brands that want to treat creators as productized growth channels rather than marketing experiments. If you’re evaluating TikTok Shop, live commerce, or creator-first growth and want a partner that blends senior strategy, engineering, creative systems and measurement - Darkroom has doubled down on the capability to deliver those outcomes.

Book a call with Darkroom to talk through TikTok Shop strategy, creator operations, or a 90-day launch plan: https://darkroomagency.com/book-a-call