Most companies make the same mistake. They put all the personal branding effort on the CEO whilst everyone else on the leadership team remains virtually invisible. It’s a wasted opportunity, and increasingly, it’s costing companies business and talent.
Here’s what happens when only your CEO has a visible personal brand. Potential clients see one face, one perspective, one voice representing your entire organisation. Research shows that B2B buyers are significantly more likely to trust companies when they can actually “see” multiple members of the leadership team, not just the person at the top.
HubSpot understood this early on. Their leadership team, not just the CEO, all have strong individual brands across different platforms. Their CMO talks about marketing strategy, their CTO discusses technology trends, their Chief People Officer shares insights on company culture. The result is significantly broader visibility and reach than any single executive could achieve alone.
The Talent Acquisition Angle
Candidates don’t just research companies anymore; they research the specific people they’d be working for. Data shows that the vast majority of job candidates look up their potential managers and leadership team before accepting offers. What do they find when they Google your leadership team? Generic LinkedIn profiles last updated several years ago? Or genuine thought leadership that gives them confidence about who they’d be joining?
The more experienced the candidate, the more they care about who they’ll be working with, not just what the company does. If your Chief Technology Officer has no visible presence discussing technology trends, what does that signal to a talented engineer considering your offer versus a competitor where the CTO is actively engaged in the industry conversation?
