The Role of Executive Profiling in Succession Planning

A few weeks ago, I was privileged to not only attend but speak on the topic “Future Ready” at the “Evolution”, an event by Nigeria’s premier event management company, Eventful. The panel featured young entrepreneurs discussing our take on succession planning — the importance, and its challenges.

Speaking on the “Future Ready” Panel

The “Evolution” was put together to celebrate a list of incredible milestones for the business.

1. The retirement of its Founder & Managing Director, Mrs Yewande Zaccheaus
2. The handover of the business to a new Managing Director, Mr. Fisayo Beecroft
3. The unveiling of the new brand identity, a book launch and so much more…

Speaking on the “Future Ready Panel” From L-R: Busola Babatunde — Lead Eventful Plus, Ore Runsewe — Founder of Arami Essentials, Marcus Smith — Founder of MarcusSmith Events & Myself

The inspiration behind this piece are milestones 1 &2. In speaking on succession planning, I elaborated on what I believe to be the critical success factors, which are: the implementation of structures and processes that guide corporate governance & accountability, client touch points, brand experience and the business culture; at the core of all of this is the team — the ability to recruit, retain, develop, empower and facilitate the visibility of a team that can take ownership of the business vision, are willing to drive it, build on it, propelling it to the next level through innovation and a huge dose of passion.

This article will address how and why as a business it is key to facilitate the visibility of your team and what it entails. The reason for this is that I have observed that most serious businesses have a clear roadmap in terms of recruitment, retention, development and empowerment, they know and put into practice what these elements entail to a large extent, but majority do not understand the concept of facilitating visibility or realize how key it is to succession planning in today’s personality-led, values-driven communications world.

How Do You Facilitate Visibility?

Quite simply, through Executive Profiling…now, let’s unpack this term.

What is Executive Profiling?

Executive Profiling is a PR & Communications strategy designed to provide high-impact visibility to executives with the goal to elevate and protect their individual brand and profile.

What Does Executive Profiling Entail?

Executive profiling entails establishing and maintaining a strong and visible professional profile. As a leader, executive profiling offers valuable opportunities to communicate your organization’s story, accelerate your career and champion the causes that you care about. One of my favourite examples of a leader who has been able to leverage executive profiling strategies successfully is Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, who not only champions the organisation’s narrative as a spokesperson of some sort but also her impact projects and causes, as the Founder of LeanIn.Org.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook & Founder of LeanIn.Org is a great case study in executive profiling

Success in executive profiling is achieved through building profile visibility amongst key stakeholders, and relevant platforms via media coverage, social media, speaking engagements, internal communications or high-profile networking opportunities. A thorough executive profiling strategy will address Your Why, Goals, UVP, Key Messaging Pillars, Target Audience, Online & Offline Visibility Platforms.

Why is Executive Profiling Key to Succession Planning?

Let’s face it, the world as we know it has changed and the global pandemic, heightened the effects of these changes, proving, as if not previously evident, that personality-led communications in businesses offer enormous gains. Studies have shown that the most superior and long-lasting performing companies are those where the Founder plays a significant role as the highly active face of the business; think Richard Branson and Virgin, Steve Jobs and Apple, Sarah Blakely and Spanx … the list goes on. Yet, executive profile strategies are some of the most intelligent PR and communications tools under-utilised by businesses globally.

The succession planning process ultimately involves a handover from one leader to another. For key executive roles, a critical aspect to this transition is ensuring client retention and an unmarred reputation despite the changes in the organisation. To achieve this, credibility and trust has to be built, your clients need to be confident in your organisation’s new leadership. Executive Profiling is a fundamental driver of corporate reputation when it comes to business, it builds prestige, heightens credibility, influence, strengthens loyalty and provides commercial advantage. Studies show that we are most likely to buy into the companies that we connect with its leadership views, ideas and values.

An executive profiling strategy, while important for the CEO, should also be implemented across the leadership team, especially when succession planning is involved. In some cases, the sitting CEO, due to the success of the organisation, and standing within the industry, is able to informally build thought-leadership and gain visibility through interviews, media appearances and speaking engagements, without an executive profiling strategy, however, this rarely trickles down mainly because it is still a fairly new concept.

If each person within the leadership team is able to successfully implement an executive profiling strategy, ensuring high-impact visibility and thought leadership positioning within the industry across local and international geographies, your business is in the absolute best position for seamless succession. There would be little to no need to convince your clients and key stakeholders that whoever is taking over the reigns of the organisation, is the right person for the job because at the highest levels of leadership, it’s not enough to “do” something, you must “be” something!

As a Business, How Can You Facilitate Visibility? Here are a few things that will help:

1. Ensure leadership team visibility across owned platforms — Website, Social Media, etc
2. Optimise the Linkedin Profiles using the Linkedin executive playbook of all Leadership team members
3. Provide and seek out visibility opportunities for the leadership team. This could be media appearances, interviews, panel speaking engagements. At the “Evolution” event I attended, I enjoyed seeing members of Eventful’s leadership team take the stage, introducing speakers and hosting the panel discussion. The leadership team should be given front and center visibility, so key stakeholders have an opportunity to connect with them. In situations where the sitting CEO is enjoying a fair share of media opportunities, this should be passed along to other members of the leadership team.
4. Hire a professional! For the past one year, my Partner — Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho and I have been working with CEO’s and C-suite executives, to develop a step-by-step strategy to help leaders strengthen and elevate their profiles. Our advice to businesses is that they have to have an executive profiling strategy as part of their succession planning process, to ensure they are building sustainable companies that can thrive in today’s world…and no, we are not going back to where things were, the preference for personality-led businesses, is here to stay!

If you would like to learn more about building & executing a successful executive profiling strategy — please send us an email on personalbranding@futuresoft-ng.com