Why leadership profiles matter
Alex Blyth, co-founder of Red Setter, believes it’s time for leaders in brand design to step up and become more visible to the world. Here, he outlines why failing to do so leaves the entire industry misunderstood and undervalued.
What has Berkshire Hathaway lost with the retirement this month of its legendary leader Warren Buffett?
For more than 60 years he has led the firm, growing it from a small textile business to one of the most successful investment vehicles in the world. It achieved that success through two strengths. One, it invested remarkably well: between 1965 and 2023 it delivered annual growth of 20%, double that of the S&P in that time. Two, Buffett built a personal media profile. He made himself a household name, and so investors trusted him with their money.
It is a clear example of what a leader can achieve by gaining a personal profile. There are many other examples, from Anita Roddick, to Steve Jobs and Jensen Huang, all leaders who appeared regularly in the media, achieving a public profile that then became a significant driver of the success of their companies.
This happens to some extent in the brand design world too. Think Brian Collins, Max Ottignon, Simon Dixon – they’re the visible faces of Collins, Ragged Edge and DixonBaxi. Their personal profiles drive awareness of their agencies, and one reason clients go those agencies is because they like what Brian, Max or Simon say – they trust them.
However, they are very much the exception in our industry. There are other examples, but they are few and far between. Notably they tend to be from independent agencies. Few leaders of larger network-owned agencies have any profile at all.
This is a missed opportunity. Not only does it hold back those individual firms, but it makes it harder for clients and society as a whole to understand the value that we as brand designers bring. It’s time for our leaders to step up and become more visible. Here’s why and how.
People buy people
There is extensive research-based evidence to prove the impact of a visible CEO. In its 2024 report ‘The CEO Reputation Premium’ – a large, established comms-industry research programme – Weber Shandwick with KRC Research found that 44% of a company's market value is attributable to CEO reputation. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 63% of people trust a credible individual voice more than a corporate brand making the same claim.
It is doubly important in the world of professional services. Clients choose consultants including brand design agencies on three factors. One, work. Have they done work similar to what I need? Has it been successful? Two, expertise. Do they understand my market and my audience? Do they have the skills I need? Three, people. Do I want to work with this person? Do I trust them?
The most successful agencies gain a reputation in all three areas. Relying on the work alone is not enough. Having a credible, likeable leader with a strong profile is not essential for growing a brand design agency, but it is without doubt helpful. And given how few people there are currently in the space, there is ample opportunity here.
Introverted or just inert?
So why don’t more take it? Some argue that designers are inherently introverted people. And certainly design attracts makers rather than advocators. But our industry reinforces that tendency. Imagine if instead of accepting, or even celebrating, our invisibility we provided training, structure and incentive for advocacy.
Other leaders mistakenly conflate the idea that the best design is invisible, which it often is, with the idea that the best designers are invisible. The work can be invisible but they themselves, and their profession as a whole, should not be.
Then there are those who feel awkward appearing to claim credit for the work of others. This humility is no doubt well intentioned, but a key part of the job of the leader is to publicise the work and advocate for its value. It’s not stealing the limelight, it’s being the spokesperson for their work.
However, by far the greatest obstacle is our industry’s culture of celebrating invisibility. It manifests as inertia, under-investment, sometimes even complacency. It has to change. This is more than an issue for individual firms. As a whole, the brand design industry has a visibility problem. If you design buildings, clothes or furniture people know who you are. If you design brands you’re largely invisible. Our reluctance as an industry to explain our process and make the case for our value, leads to the mainstream media’s ill-informed criticism of rebrands, to c-suites’ persistent underfunding of brand design, to successive governments under-funding the education that produces the young talent we need, and so on and on.
Time to step up
We can change this. In my forthcoming book The Invisible Designer I set out a ten-point manifesto for change. The first is for individual leaders to invest properly in connecting with the mainstream media. It can be done. There is no inherent reason why journalists routinely go to senior partners at Magic Circle law firms and Big Four accountancy leaders for comment on business issues, but it never occurs to them to get the view of a brand design leader. It happens because those law firms and accountancy practices have spent years putting their leaders forward as authoritative sources on those subjects. They’ve effectively trained the journalists. As an industry, and as individual leaders, we need to do the same thing.
Beyond this, we need industry bodies that are funded and mandated to think bigger. To give just one example, architecture’s Pritzker Prize is routinely covered by the BBC, Guardian and NYT. The Stirling Prize ceremony is sometimes on the BBC. It makes household names out of the likes of Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid. Imagine if D&AD and Cannes Lions had the same visibility.
But first and foremost, we need individual agency leaders who will step up to the task. We don’t need them to be Warren Buffett, but we do need to be more visible than they currently are.
