INTHEBLACK December - January 2022 - Magazine - Page 54
Personal branding
INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT
CPA Australia Public Practice Virtual Conference, 2020 - Mary Henderson
The importance of personal branding
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“You can’t fake your personal brand. We don’t
make a brand for somebody out of thin air –
we ‘dig into’ the person to see what’s inside
and then extract the brand out.”
ANDREW FORD, PERSONAL BRANDING EXPERT
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DEC 2022
JAN 2023
INTHEBLACK CAREER, ELEVATED SPECIAL EDITION
Strategic communication expert Jane
Anderson says that personal branding
is ultimately about showing who you are
as a person.
“It’s where we bring in control when
things go wrong, because your character
shows up most when things go wrong.”
Perhaps one of the most well-known
recent examples of how one’s personal
brand can change is American TV
personality Ellen DeGeneres.
“She seemed to have made a brand out
of being a good person,” says Ford.
After hosting a wildly successful talk
show for nearly two decades, DeGeneres
found herself in a storm of controversy in
2020, with allegations of staff harassment
and a toxic work environment. Her
personal brand suffered, and the show
ended in May 2022.
Ford works with people at different
stages of their career and says that what
is relevant to someone’s personal brand
often changes over time. Someone who is
starting out in their career will be eager to
become known – for all the right reasons –
and will seek visibility.
“Towards the end of a person’s career,
climbing the corporate ladder and earning
a big salary become less important,” he
says. “The focus often switches to leaving
a legacy.”
BE AUTHENTIC
Clearly articulated values are integral to
developing a strong brand at any stage of