Aishu Ramesh · Creator partnerships strategy and operations

Creators are part of your strategy.
Make them part of your growth.

I run the strategy and operations behind creator partnerships, for businesses investing in creators as a growth channel and for businesses building for creators. The work covers deciding where to invest, designing the program, putting the budget and people behind it, and getting it running with your team. Creator participation, retention and commercial growth all depend on those decisions being made well.

Where programs break ↓ Explore services →

Airtime isn't bought anymore.
It's earned.

Airtime used to be scarce, controlled by a handful of networks who owned and sold it in slots. That world doesn't exist the way it used to. Creators no longer ask permission to go on air. They publish, the audience decides what gets seen, and that attention is what now earns airtime.

I help creator platforms, brands, and SaaS companies earn airtime in the creator era, by designing the commercial systems that turn attention into revenue.

Background

Operator knowledge,
from inside the room.

Hi, I'm Aishu. I've spent the last five years at YouTube building and scaling creator programs across APAC. I've covered everything from designing creator service models, to launching brand partnership programs across multiple markets and building new content verticals from zero to one. Before that, I worked at Cloudflare and LinkedIn across Sales Strategy, Operations and Competitive Intelligence functions, and was a consultant at EY Parthenon.

Aishu Ramesh, founder of Airtime
YouTube YouTube
Google Google
Cloudflare Cloudflare
LinkedIn
EY Parthenon EY Parthenon
Where programs break

Creator programs get built around what's easy to measure.

Creators signed up, content posted, features switched on. Each of those can go up without revenue moving, and where it actually breaks is usually one of five places.

Supply without monetization

Creators join but can't earn meaningfully, so they don't leave established competitors. Creator decisions are financial, not loyalty-based, and acquisition without monetization proof doesn't move them.

Creator service model gaps

How you segment and manage your creator portfolio determines whether the commercial system works. When the service model isn't fit for purpose, creators placed into managed programs become unresponsive and resources are spent on the wrong accounts. This is usually blamed on the individual relationships, when the actual cause is the design of the service model.

No agreed definition of success

Creator programs launch without anyone deciding what they will be judged on. Platforms count creators onboarded when the goal was creator earnings, so a program can run for months before anyone can say whether it worked. Brands reach the review with no agreed metric, so the conversation defaults to proving revenue impact the program was never built to show.

One playbook, multiple markets

A program built for one APAC market rarely transfers to another without significant adaptation. The differences across markets are large enough that a single playbook applied everywhere tends to fail, and the cost of that becomes clear quickly.

Agency ecosystem gaps

Agencies are the execution layer for creator programs and market entry. Map the ecosystem wrong and you contract agencies that source creators but can't close commitments, or miss the ones that actually drive distribution.

Not sure which failure mode you're in? Take a 3 minute diagnostic to find out.

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In practice

What you can do once the work is done.

Each engagement ends with your team able to make a decision it could not make before. These are the six.

Decide which creators get investment

You can say which creator segments and tiers your budget goes to, what each tier is owed in service, and which ones to stop funding, with the unit economics behind each call.

Price a program before committing to it

You can put a cost on a creator program ahead of launch, hold each agency to a defined scope, and see which part of the budget is going to the wrong tier.

Launch the next market without starting over

You can sequence markets in an order you can defend, carry the same structure across, and recalibrate the numbers inside it instead of rebuilding the program each time.

Run a review that produces decisions

You can hold a monthly or quarterly review against targets agreed before launch, with thresholds that say when to act rather than when to keep discussing.

Plan the resource the function needs

You can size the headcount and capacity behind the program, prioritise across competing programs, and say what gets cut when the budget does.

Get a new feature adopted, not just switched on

You can decide which markets get a launch and in what order, close the readiness gaps in your agency and creator base before it ships, and read the early signals that say whether adoption is holding.

Creator program economics

Three principles the work runs on.

I call the fix for this Creator Program Economics, the discipline of designing the commercial systems that turn creator attention into revenue, from program strategy and service models to product activation and adoption.

Creators are a portfolio, not a channel

A channel is an expense. A portfolio is something you allocate across, rebalancing the mix on risk and return.

Select on signal, not size

Follower counts and account size rarely predict what a creator returns. Selection runs on unit economics instead.

Structure holds, thresholds move

The architecture stays consistent across markets and the numbers inside it recalibrate. Flex the structure and you can't run more than one market.

Services

Services tailored to your specific goals.

Time-based engagements

One Take

45-minute working session

One specific decision, worked through live, with a one-page written read the next day. For when you have a narrow question rather than a program to diagnose.

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On Air

Fractional Creator Strategy & Operations Lead

A monthly retainer where I hold the strategy and operations side of your creator work. That covers setting priorities across competing programs, planning the resource behind them, coordinating delivery, and adjusting as performance comes in. Available on its own, or after a Pilot or Series.

See details →
Project-based engagements
Diagnose

Signal Check

Creator program health check

Best for when You know something isn't working, whether creator activation, commercial program performance or market results, but can't pinpoint where the break is.

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What's included

  • Creator monetization funnel audit
  • Commercial program assessment
  • Agency ecosystem snapshot by market
  • Priority action matrix: top 3 fixes in sequence
Learn more →
Build

Pilot

Creator program build

Best for when You have a creator base but no systematic commercial motion: service model, program design, agency ecosystem, or market sequencing.

Click to see what's included →

What's included

  • Creator service model design
  • Commercial program architecture
  • Agency selection criteria and contract structure, per market
  • activation playbook
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Scale

Series

Creator Scale Strategy

Best for when The program works, or it worked. Now it's plateauing, not replicating across markets, or breaking under its own operational weight.

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What's included

  • Full creator program audit
  • Supply and demand dynamics diagnosis
  • Multi-market sequencing and OKR framework
  • Implementation sequence
  • Operating model rebuild, run through one cycle with your team
Learn more →
Activate

Feature Premiere

Product activation and adoption

Best for when You've built a feature or a creator tool and adoption across markets isn't happening at the rate it should.

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What's included

  • Market sequencing by wave
  • Partner and creator readiness assessment
  • Creator adoption playbook
  • Feedback loop design to product
Learn more →
See full service details → See the work →
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