06/18/2025

If You're a CEO, You May Need a "Reputation Coach"

Executives need to express unique perspectives to stand out to their audiences

A CEO's reputation and the reputation of their company are inextricably tied to each other, but they are not the same. They are two strands, wound together like a DNA helix; if one strand breaks, the other is damaged. This parallel makes the two even more challenging to manage, especially for a busy leader who is already dealing with a complex set of demands.

Before the advent of social media, a CEO’s reputation was subservient to that of the company. In his definitive 1996 book Reputation: Realizing Value from Corporate Image, reputation scholar Charles Fombrun speaks of reputational capital for companies. He says that companies are the "modern icons of our mass society" and talks about their reputational capital as an intangible asset.

Fombrun published his book before the advent of social media. With the arrival of LinkedIn in 2003, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005 and Twitter in 2006, reputation has taken on a much more immediate and individual slant. A series of factors, including these platforms that deliver immediate content to a broader audience and the parallel rise in influencer culture, means that our attention is now more drawn to iconic CEOs and leaders rather than iconic companies. For example, Richard Branson has 19 million followers on LinkedIn, while Virgin Media has 73,000, Virgin Atlantic has 418,000 and Virgin Money has 114,000.

Please select this link to read the complete article from SmartBrief.