Worked Example: From Experience to Executive Presence
How professional experience becomes a clear identity, a credible story and a platform that makes your contribution visible.
This free worked example follows Sarah Morgan, a fictional professional, through Discover, Position and Build. It shows what the method and its outputs can look like in practice. For a short, hands-on exercise to work through your own experience, start with our Executive Brand Clarity Field Guide.
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Three stages. One connected process.
- Find the patterns in your experience.
- Express your contribution consistently.
- Build a platform to keep it visible.
Start with evidence, not a slogan.
A professional’s value is often spread across job descriptions, projects, feedback, decisions and achievements. Looking at each item separately can hide the recurring contribution that connects them.
In our example, Sarah brings a CV with broad role descriptions, a LinkedIn profile, project summaries, feedback describing her as calm and practical, and a rough list of achievements. The first task is to map the material and distinguish evidence from interpretation and unknowns.
Patterns found in Sarah’s work
- She looks for the system behind recurring problems rather than treating each incident in isolation.
- She connects customer experience with the operational choices that shape it.
- She creates shared clarity across teams with different incentives and vocabularies.
- She turns analysis into clear owners, decisions and follow-through.
- She builds capability so improvements are less dependent on one person.
A draft identity statement
I help organisations improve customer and operational performance by finding the system behind recurring problems, aligning teams around the right decisions and building practical ways to sustain improvement.
This statement is a working hypothesis, not a permanent label. In a real engagement, we would test it with the customer, trace it back to evidence and identify what needs more validation.
Try it yourself
- List five projects, decisions or pieces of work you are proud of.
- For each, note the problem, what you did, who you worked with and what changed.
- Look for verbs and patterns that recur: diagnosing, simplifying, aligning, building, deciding, teaching or delivering.
- Ask a trusted colleague what they most often rely on you for.
Make your contribution easy to understand.
Once the evidence has been organised, Position turns the findings into practical materials. The aim is consistency without making every interaction sound identical.
What Sarah’s positioning supports
- LinkedIn: a headline and About section that explain her contribution in plain language.
- CV: a professional narrative supported by specific achievements, rather than a list of responsibilities alone.
- Biography: a concise introduction for conversations, events and profiles.
- Achievement stories: examples that explain the context, judgement, action and evidence behind her work.
For example, rather than claiming to be an “industry-leading transformation expert”, Sarah uses a grounded explanation of the problems she helps solve and the way she works. Comparative claims and metrics are only used if evidence supports them.
Try it yourself
- Write one sentence beginning “I help…” or “My contribution is…”.
- Name the problems, decisions or opportunities you help with.
- Choose two examples that make the statement credible.
- Remove superlatives and claims you could not comfortably substantiate in a conversation.
Give the story a home and a way to grow.
A clear profile is useful, but it can still be hard for someone to explore the depth of your work. Build connects the narrative to a practical platform that can be updated as your experience develops.
What Sarah’s platform includes
- A lightweight website with a clear structure for her profile, work, ideas and contact.
- Up to three case studies that show context, decisions, contribution and evidence.
- A structured knowledge base that keeps source material and proof points findable.
- Five LinkedIn posts and two articles based on her work and point of view.
- A Buffer publishing workflow and 90-day content roadmap, with explicit review and approval before scheduling.
- A handover guide so she can maintain the platform after delivery.
The platform is not a substitute for substance. Its job is to make credible work easier to discover, understand and keep current.
Try it yourself
- Choose one project you can discuss without disclosing confidential information.
- Write the context, challenge, your role, key decisions, actions and verifiable outcome.
- Identify one useful lesson or point of view that could help others.
- Choose a simple place to keep the evidence and a realistic rhythm for updating it.
Your experience is the raw material.
You do not need to invent a new persona. You need to find the credible contribution inside the work you have already done, express it clearly and decide how you want people to encounter it.
Start by collecting evidence and testing your explanation with people who know your work. If you want help with the interpretation, communication or implementation, The London Brand Studio can support you through Discover, Position and Build.
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Editorial note: Sarah Morgan, her career, source materials, quotes and examples are fictional and are included only to demonstrate the method. Any figures or outcomes in the underlying worked examples are illustrative and must not be presented as verified results.