What is personal branding?

Personal branding is one of those phrases that gets thrown around so much it starts to sound a bit empty. But if you’re a founder or in upper leadership, it’s not theoretical at all. It’s the difference between being vaguely “known” and being remembered, recommended, and trusted when you’re not in the room.

This is the first piece in a monthly series I’m calling “Brand Yourself Before They Label You” – a quiet, ongoing conversation about what personal branding actually is, why it matters, and how to approach it with intention if you’re a founder or senior leader in Bangkok, Singapore, or anywhere else you happen to be building a life.

When a client asks me, “What is personal branding?” I usually start here: it’s how people meet you before they meet you.

Most of the important decisions about you today are made when you’re not present. Someone mentions your name in a meeting, at a dinner, in a WhatsApp group. The next thing that happens is predictable: they look you up. LinkedIn, Instagram, your website, maybe a podcast or panel recording if you speak often. Before you’ve shaken hands or said hello, they’ve already formed a first impression from what they see.

The more formal definition I like is from Harvard Business Review, which frames personal branding as the deliberate practice of defining and expressing your value. In other words, it’s the combined set of beliefs, expectations, and feelings people hold about you, and how clearly that matches who you actually are and what you actually do. The goal is for that picture to be accurate, coherent, compelling, and distinct enough that they remember you for the right reasons.

Where I come in is the visible part of that equation. I work with founders, entrepreneurs, and senior leaders whose work is already strong, but whose photos and online presence haven’t caught up with the level they’re operating at. They’re respected in person, but online there’s a disconnect: an old headshot from three jobs ago, a fragmented feed, or no images at all. That disconnect often shows up as hesitation from others – “not yet,” “I’m not sure they’re the right fit,” or simply no invitation at all.

There’s also the internal side. Many of my clients know visibility matters, but feel they’re “not ready” or “too camera shy” to do anything about it. They want to be taken seriously as the expert in the room, but the idea of putting themselves front and centre feels uncomfortable, self-indulgent, or a little risky. They tell themselves they’ll invest in photos once things are more established, once the website is done, once they’ve lost five kilos or gained more confidence. In the meantime, opportunities pass quietly to people who look easier to understand at first glance.

The thing I remind them – and I’ll remind you – is this: you already have a personal brand. The question is whether it’s intentional.

If you haven’t done any work on it, your brand still exists; it’s just being shaped by whatever happens to be visible. An old profile photo. A half-finished LinkedIn summary. A couple of random press features where you happened to be tagged. Other people will stitch those scraps together into a story about who you are. Sometimes they get it right. Often, they don’t.

Intentional personal branding is you stepping in to direct that story. It doesn’t mean inventing a persona or smoothing out every rough edge. It means choosing what you want to be known for, and making sure the way you show up – in words, in images, in rooms – is consistent with that.

From a photographic perspective, that looks like closing the gap between your reality and how you appear online. It’s the founder whose work is thoughtful and high-calibre finally having portraits that reflect that level. It’s the senior leader who is already being trusted with major decisions starting to look, on LinkedIn and in speaker line-ups, like the person people already turn to privately for advice.

This is why I don’t think of personal branding photography as “just a photoshoot.” It’s more like creating a set of visual assets that work quietly on your behalf in all the places you can’t be at once – on your website, in pitch decks, on conference slides, in group chats where your name comes up. Strong images don’t replace substance, but they do make it easier for the right people to recognise it quickly and say yes.

In the coming months, I’ll be unpacking different aspects of this: how to think about your online presence as a leader, what makes a portrait feel like you rather than a costume, why “I’m shy” doesn’t disqualify you from being visible, and how my clients and I design sessions that feel collaborative rather than performative.

For now, I’ll leave you with a few questions to sit with:

When people look you up today, what story are your photos and profiles telling about you?

Does that story feel accurate, or has your work outgrown it?

If you didn’t change anything for the next year, what might that be quietly costing you?

If you read this and recognise that gap in your own online presence, you’re not alone. When you’re ready to start closing it, you can explore my personal branding portfolio and make an enquiry through the contact form on my website – we’ll talk about where you are now, where you’re going, and how your images can finally meet you there.