Authority Signals
Proof other people already vouch for you — press mentions, podcast appearances, awards, named clients, board positions, speaking history. The compounding asset of personal branding: a Forbes piece earned in 2019 still works in 2026. Brand Clarity is what you say about yourself; Authority Signals are what other people say.
Strong authority signals come from tier-1 press, named talks, recognised awards, and credible advisory roles. Weak signals — pay-to-play awards, podcast appearances on shows nobody listens to, ghostwritten Forbes Council pieces — score lower than auditees expect.
Dimension #3 in the Visibility Index. Read the deep dive →
Brand Clarity
Whether a stranger can explain what you do in one line, after 10 seconds on your LinkedIn or website. Strong brand clarity has three components: a specific audience, a specific outcome, and consistency across surfaces (headline, About section, recent posts, website hero, podcast bio).
Most professionals fail clarity because they list job titles ("Founder | CEO | Investor") or hedge ("I help startups grow"). The audience-and-outcome formula — "I help [audience] [outcome]" — is the structure that passes the test.
Dimension #2 in the Visibility Index. Read the deep dive →
Content Cadence
Frequency and consistency of public posting. The unit isn't volume — it's predictability: same day, same shape, same topic pillars. Distribution algorithms (LinkedIn, X, YouTube) reward predictable patterns because their job is to surface content their users will want, and predictable creators are easier to model.
Strong cadence is weekly-or-better, sustained, with three identifiable topic pillars. Daily posting that lasts six weeks then stops is worse than weekly posting that lasts a year.
Dimension #4 in the Visibility Index. Read the deep dive →
Digital Footprint
What shows up when someone Googles your name. The visible composite of every owned channel (personal site, LinkedIn, podcast, Substack) and every earned mention (press, talks, interviews) you have. Most professionals never Google themselves — but their prospective board chair, investor, or client absolutely will.
A strong digital footprint includes a distinct first-page result that's about you (not your company), multiple owned channels, and clear differentiation from same-name people.
Dimension #1 in the Visibility Index. Full methodology →
Network Recognition
Quality of engagement from your network — comments, named mentions, inbound shares — weighted significantly more than raw follower count. A 3,000-follower account with 50 active conversations beats a 30,000-follower account with crickets, both for algorithms and for human pattern recognition.
Network Recognition is largely a downstream effect of the other dimensions; it improves when there's something worth engaging with.
Dimension #6 in the Visibility Index. Full methodology →
Visual Identity
Profile photo and banner quality, plus visual consistency across the surfaces a stranger encounters (LinkedIn, website, podcast bios, conference profile pages). The cheapest dimension to fix: one afternoon with a designer permanently moves a 0/3 to a 2/3.
A generic stock banner signals "I don't think about this." A considered banner signals "I'm intentional." That signal compounds.
Dimension #5 in the Visibility Index. Full methodology →
Visibility Index
A six-dimension framework for measuring executive personal-brand visibility, scored 0–18 composite (displayed as 0–100). Created by Yentl Spiteri at Von Peach GmbH (Zürich). Available as a free 60-second audit at index.vonpeach.com; the audit pulls public LinkedIn signals, Google search results, and press-mention scans, then returns a tier label and a personalised PDF report.
The framework's six dimensions: Digital Footprint, Brand Clarity, Authority Signals, Content Cadence, Visual Identity, Network Recognition. The four tier outcomes: Hidden Gem, Rising Voice, Emerging Authority, Recognised Leader.
The Rising Voice
Visibility Index tier 2 (composite 6–10). Building momentum but with a few gaps holding you back. The median first-audit tier — most professionals score here on first run because they have one or two strong dimensions (typically Brand Clarity and Visual Identity) and one or two weak ones (typically Authority Signals and Content Cadence).
The Emerging Authority
Visibility Index tier 3 (composite 11–15). Solid foundations across most dimensions. The work at this tier is consistency and scale: turning a good baseline into a sharp signature, raising the lowest two dimensions to match the strongest.
The Recognised Leader
Visibility Index tier 4 (composite 16–18). Strong personal brand built; real authority in place. The work at this tier is sharpening — deepening the signature, becoming the obvious reference for one specific thing rather than a competent generalist across many.
Topic Pillars
The three core subjects an executive consistently writes about. Pillars create pattern-recognition: after a few months, your audience knows what you'll write about, which is half of brand recognition. Picked correctly, pillars sustain two years of weekly posts without running dry; picked badly, the well runs dry in six weeks.
Good pillar candidates: the question you get asked most, the controversial take you hold but rarely share, the corner of your industry you know better than most.
Used in Content Cadence.
Tier-1 Press
Press mentions in publications widely recognised as authoritative within their domain — FT, Bloomberg, WSJ, The Economist, Forbes, Sifted, TechCrunch, Tech.eu, Wired, The Information, Stratechery, etc. Distinct from trade-publication mentions, company-associated press, and pay-to-play platforms (Forbes Council, Newsweek Expert Forum).
The Visibility Index weights tier-1 mentions much higher than tier-2 because they require third-party editorial decisions to land — a meaningful credibility signal that journalists, recruiters, and conference programmers pattern-match on.
Used in Authority Signals.
10-Second Test
The clarity test: can a stranger, after 10 seconds on your LinkedIn, write one accurate sentence about who you help and what changes for them? Most professionals fail this test, because their headlines list job titles or hedge with vague language ("I help startups grow"). The 10-second test is the operational definition of strong Brand Clarity.
Used in Brand Clarity.
Audience-and-Outcome Formula
The structure of a clear personal-brand headline: "I help [specific audience] [specific outcome]." Replaces title-stacking ("Founder | CEO | Investor") and abstract-mission language ("Building the future of work"), which both fail the 10-Second Test.
The specific audience matters more than the specific outcome — a SaaS founder hiring a CMO doesn't search "marketing leader," they search "B2B SaaS CMO with PLG experience." Specificity attracts; vagueness deflects.
Used in Brand Clarity.
Personal-Brand Audit
A structured assessment of how visible an individual professional is to the audiences that matter to them. Done well, it's observed-signals based (what shows up in search, what's actually posted, what's earned externally) — not self-assessment, which systematically inflates results by ~3×. Done poorly, it's a vague checklist or a sales pitch dressed up as analysis.
The Visibility Index is one example of an observed-signals personal-brand audit; others exist with varying methodologies.
Thought Leadership
An overused term for sustained public expression of considered opinions on a defined topic, with the goal of becoming the recognised reference for that topic in your audience's mind. Most thought-leadership content fails because it lacks defined opinions — it offers consensus takes wrapped in confident prose. Real thought leadership requires a position you'd defend, repeated until your audience associates the position with you.
Within the Visibility Index, thought leadership is roughly the intersection of Brand Clarity (you have a defined position), Content Cadence (you express it consistently), and Authority Signals (others recognise you for it).