Secret sauce for a boss

Want to sound cool on LinkedIn? Need help with making a brand stand out? These spin doctors are under 30, but are firing up origin stories and CEO manifestos. See how they do it

- Anjali Kochhar

In the corporate world, the tables are turning so fast, even AI is confused. Ask an image generator to imagine a branding expert. It's likely to deliver visuals of a middle-aged man, wearing neon spectacle frames to look cool. In the real world, strategists in their 20s are helping older CEOs build their online personas and stand out on social media.

Age gap? It's a feature, not a bug. Young people have grown up online, have been shaped by YouTube sidebars, Reddit threads, Instagram captions and viral apology videos. The don't need a workshop to understand digital storytelling. They've learnt by scrolling, posting, cringing and reshareing. They roll their eyes over empty mentions of “impact” and “innovation”.

Sought-after branding experts now work remotely from Jorhat, Jaipur, Indore — away from networking brunches and agency fluff. It's made them braver, willing to test fast, fail fast, and move on. It’s exactly what CEOs need. See how some strategists get it done.

Opening up

If there’s one word Ayushi Somani keeps returning to, it’s friendship. “I don’t see myself as a service provider,” says the 27-year-old founder of the personal-branding agency WildGO Media. She cares more about a client’s heart, personality, mind and experiences, rather than what they're selling. “I have to become a trusted partner, a safe space, and a non-judgmental friend to whom they can open up.”

Somani started out in 2018, juggling a preschool teaching job in Jaipur and writing content for companies. By 2020, she’d moved to writing full-time and had become known for her emotionally intelligent storytelling and positioning. She has since amassed more than 140k followers on LinkedIn and is one of the top voices on TopMate. She has helped one of the Sharks from Shark Tank India build a strong personal brand as well.