RALEIGHJalen Hatton has stepped down from his role as community manager for Loading Dock’s new shared office space in Raleigh’s Prince Hall district.

He will now serve as relationship manager at Creative Allies,  a content marketing firm based out of Raleigh and headed up by African American CEO, female Amie Thompson.

On why he decided to leave his post at Loading Dock, Hatton, 25, said: “We worked ourselves into an inflection point. This was going to require us to grow even more quickly than we had in the previous year. It was a great milestone for the company but it would have required me to reset my role, to best fit the next phase.  I either needed to recommit to the company for the foreseeable future or take it as an opportunity to start the next phase of my career. I chose the latter.”

Founded in 2009, Creative Allies originally specialized in sourcing design for artists in the music industry. Today, its platform now offers content and design for every kind of business out there – with more than 100,000 contractors to source from.

Jalen Hatton, community manager at Loading Dock. Credit: Emily Bennett of Chair 8 Media

Past clients include ESPN X Games, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Chris Paul’s CP3 Rising Stars program and a recent project with the UNC-Chapel Hill Women’s Soccer Team.

“What I found was that Creative Allies shared my mission of creating greater access to resources for all entrepreneurs,” Hatton said. “But to make things even better, I also came to realize that, while Creative Allies is an independent organization, they are a member of a partnership network that includes some of the fastest-growing firms in our area; several of which are owned and or run by minority executives. From there it was pretty much a done deal.”

Going forward, Hatton said his mission is to show founders and their teams that they can grow their business and reach the next level without a massive marketing budget.

“All they have to do is learn to embrace the future of work,” he said.

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