The appointment of Esra Ozturk as Head of Product at Luffa signals a strategic expansion for the decentralized messaging platform as it evolves from secure communication technology into a comprehensive loyalty infrastructure for the fan economy. Ozturk brings extensive experience from major technology companies including Meta, where she helped scale Instagram Reels from early experiments to global launch, and Uber, where she led safety and quality initiatives that strengthened marketplace integrity while improving driver earnings and reducing cancellations.
Luffa, designed with end-to-end encryption and creator-first privacy, is building what the company describes as a universal loyalty infrastructure that will connect creators, brands, and fans across digital and real-world experiences. The platform currently operates as a secure messaging service that creates trusted, high-frequency interactions between creators and their communities. According to Ozturk, The next generation of loyalty won't be owned by any single platform. Today, loyalty spans creators, brands, live experiences, and digital communities, but it's fragmented. At Luffa, we're starting with secure, decentralized messaging as the backbone, and building toward a portable identity and reward layer that travels wherever fans go.
Ozturk's product career began during college when she contributed to Snapchat's story search feature, which later evolved into Snap Maps. She subsequently built tools at Zillow that helped agents and loan officers convert more buyers into funded loans, and led machine learning work at Instacart to detect fraud and reduce unnecessary refunds. Yu Xiong, founding advisor of Luffa, stated that Esra's track record of building products people love at global scale, and navigating the complexity of multi-stakeholder platforms, is exactly what we envisioned for this next stage of Luffa's growth. As we expand from encrypted messaging into loyalty and rewards, her leadership will help evolve Luffa into the connective infrastructure linking creators, brands, and fans.
The company recently demonstrated its technology at CreatorHub Madrid in partnership with UMusic Hotel Madrid, an event that united over 50 global creators and local influencers reaching more than five billion monthly impressions. The activation featured Grammy Award-winning artist Joaquina, AI digital artist Tata, and influencers McKenzi Brooke and Adley Kinsman, providing one of the first public demonstrations of Luffa's decentralized messaging layer while previewing upcoming loyalty features currently in beta testing.
Under Ozturk's leadership, Luffa's product roadmap includes scaling its secure messaging infrastructure, introducing its loyalty and rewards layer, and expanding partnerships across entertainment, hospitality, and live events. The platform's evolution from secure messaging to connected rewards ecosystem represents a significant development in how technology can bridge digital engagement with real-world value for creators and their communities. This transition addresses the growing fragmentation in fan loyalty across multiple platforms and experiences, potentially creating more sustainable economic models for creators while providing fans with portable identity and reward systems that work across different engagement touchpoints.
