Rising Stars: Meet Rachel Maeng of Los Angeles, CA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Maeng.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
As a former collegiate student-athlete, I’ve always been extremely driven and vision-focused. Beyond competing in Divison I I wanted to attend a school where sports had a large presence and opportunity. Early on in college I realized I wanted to start a company that sat between social media and monetization. After switching my major from Pre-Med Biomedical Engineering to Economics and Business Admin, everything I only participated in things that would help me reach that goal. Because what I wanted to do didn’t quite exist at that time I spent time building my resume with two types of jobs – big blue chip names that would validate my value and smaller companies where I could spearhead projects and get real experience. In 2020, TikTok brought me on through the #LearnonTikTok program to help migrate the platform from what it was pre-covid to more of what you see now (think, education, monetization, brand deals, etc.). This is where I got my validation (blue chip name) in the creator economy. GEN Agency (previously named Loot Agency and as seen on Netflix 2025). I led the company for 4 years and was able to work with amazing brands like NerdWallet, Meta, Netflix, Kellogg’s, American Eagle, and more. I recently exited and have since become an investor/advisor to different companies in the NIL, Influencer, Sponsorship Data Management, AI, Sports Tech, and EdTech industries.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Defintely not! At this point, I think I’ve seen and expereinced everything. I’ve had Creator canceled, brands, cut talent, mid campaign, artist, miss their content, creation session, and go stage on two hours late, and was even hospitalized in my first year of the agency as a result of stress. When I was hospitalized, I went into sepsis, and it became a life-threatening result of not sticking to the time management skills I learned while being a student athlete in college. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and I look back at everything that I’ve encountered as something that taught me a lesson either about myself or the industry.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
In this new space of content, creation, brand deals, and NIL, I’ve built my experience to be unique to the space. Most people believe that brand deals are easy to get for people who have influence. People believe that brands innately want to work with talent because they want to attach on to their reputation or whatever they are known for. In reality, brands don’t need talent. They will utilize talent if the talent has follower or audience demographics that fit their customers, and using them will help reach a demographic that they have not previously been able to reach or will reinforce their messaging during a specific campaign period. This has led to the false promise to athletes that if you are interested in securing brand deals or endorsements, brands will openly hire you. Additionally, In the NIL space, so many people wanted to become agents because they wanted to make money off of athletes versus making money for athletes. I work with a number of universities, agencies, and collective, and third-party organizations to help reshape the NIL economy in the image of the Creator economy so there is better education and expectations.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up in a 89% white community in upstate New York. I was adopted from South Korea and I’m Korean Filipina. As a result, I never looked at my ethnicity, my gender, or my age as a hindrance. I credit my parents and my community for giving me the high level of confidence that I have today. I’ve always put a big emphasis on learning and experience, taking part in internships and volunteer leadership activities as a young adult and continue this now as a senator for Rutgers University. I’m very vision focused, as throughout my career I’ve always had a sort of “north star” that helped me push through difficult moments in both my professional and personal life. I discovered I was in a red divergent during Covid and have had to shape my day-to-day life around the realities of this while still maintaining the high level of excellence in my career.

Pricing:

• Influencer or NIL Consulting
• Brand Sponsorships (events, campaigns)
• Event Strategy or Execution
• Investor, Advisor/Board Member
• Operations (Fractional COO or consulting)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelmaeng/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/rachelmaeng
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelmaeng/
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@rachelmaeng_

Image Credits
Sam Green (zoom image), Syracuse University, NASCAR/Boom Media and Image Consulting LLC., Rutgers University Athletics