Last week I had the opportunity to present at the Marcus Evans Chief Series : Power Pairing of CEOs & CFOs, at the One and Only Cape Town Hotel.

Facing an audience of more than 55 CEO’s and CFO’s I spoke in particular about CEO Reputation, and how 81% of executives around the world believe it is important for CEOs to have a public presence for their companies to be highly-regarded. These respondents also estimated that 44 percent of their company’s market value and 45 percent of their company’s reputation – that’s nearly half – are attributable to the reputation of their CEO.

This makes the role of the CEO, succession planning and Leadership Development an integral part of your company’s reputation strategy.

I gave the audience tips for the audience on how to raise the profile of the CEO including why CEO’s have to maintain a positive presence – in person and in social media. Example – research shows that these days before people consider doing business with a company, they often quickly research the CEO online and make a strong correlation between the CEO and the company. As Brian Solis tweeted – You will be Googled, Facebooked, Twitter searched & measured by what you share & who you know.

I talked about the importance of telling your company’s story – the good and the bad, the need for authentic humble CEO’s as opposed to celebrity CEO’s, why they needed to become storytellers and active in Social Media. When you share your story – your vision and victories with your customers and shareholders, it helps create and foster that strong, personal bond CEO branding is all about.

I also covered the need for alignment between goals and values, between conduct and actions and alignment between expectations and experiences of stakeholders (Reputation = Experiences – Expectations) i.e. Walk the Talk.

Action Steps

What are you doing to raise your CEO’s Profile? How visible is your CEO? Another important aspect was speaking engagements. Finding your CEO the correct podium is vital, and by that I do not necessarily mean executive podiums. Having a CEO address a local community at an event, even attending a funeral is an opportunity to show the human and humble face of your CEO.

To further understand the importance of leveraging CEO Reputation and storytelling, read this article and view the infographic by Neil Patel How to Engage and Persuade People Through Storytelling. I can also highly recommend the book “Platform – Getting Noticed in a Noisy World” by Michael Hyatt. It provides some excellent social media insights. Also read this Weber Shandwick study for more insight into CEO Reputations.

P.S The latest Freefalling Reputation Stumble Rate update : Weber Shandwick’s annual calculation of reputation loss shows an improvement in the management of corporate reputations and provides some valuable insight into CEO tenure. bit.ly/1n4cpSR @ReputationRx