Oliver Duffy-Lee

Oliver Duffy-LeeAug 10, 2026

In my 20s I was incredibly lucky… I was given the freedom to travel to grow the client accounts I had. If I said I think I need to go to Singapore next month, my boss would ask ‘Why aren’t you there already?’ Over those years I won projects across the world… Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, Lyon… everywhere I could dream to go. It was the single best lesson I could wish to receive… If you want to grow a business, you need to see people regularly, and be present in their world. Psychologist Robert Cialdini has a maxim for this - ‘What’s present is important’. In simple terms, we add an outsized amount of importance for things (or people) that are most present in our lives. We can never underestimate the importance of regular time with important partners. And now… (in my late 30s 🙂) We're lucky to have clients all over the world again. We’re currently working with clients across Asia, Europe and the USA. I’ll admit though… These days it’s a little harder to get up and go for a few weeks at a time… With a young family at home, when you don’t want to miss a second. This is our business though - it’s global. Our mission is always to make the miles between us to feel insignificant to our partners. The core fundamentals of bringing world class ideas to brands with a world class experience is needed everywhere… And we’ll be present wherever that’s needed.

Oliver Duffy-LeeAug 3, 2026

The B2B thought leadership playbook is reversing. For 20 years: build authority, audience follows. The smartest tech brands now do the opposite. Early years of thought leadership the story went… Build authority with a small subset/niche. From there, you can continue to grow your audience. In other words… Audience follows Authority. That playbook, although still relevant, is being replaced. A number of famous B2B brands (mostly in Tech) have worked out how to grow authority much quicker. They position themselves in channels that bring them a wider audience quickly. Think conferences, podcasts, owned events. In doing so, they bring themselves a new, high quality audience… Owning this audience brings them authority. In other words Authority follows Audience. This is a new strategy for enterprise and it needs a new way of viewing thought leadership. As much as white papers, technical webinars and long form articles are still important… These activities confine a brand to the industries within which they already have an audience. Better activities for the new playbook include: 1. Raising C-Suite profile systematically through high quality media appearances 2. Leveraging the CEO brand as a key channel 3. Owned content that involves industry leaders as guests 4. Podcast roadshows The exciting thing for me personally as this is the old Authority Agency playbook… This is the way that entrepreneurs and founders of small business have been growing for the past 5-10 years. And finally… We see enterprise taking this very seriously… And we’re delighted to be helping a number of global businesses on their thought leadership path right now. Of course, there are serious considerations in how to action this with impact… Check comments for more on that 👇

Oliver Duffy-LeeAug 24, 2026

3 traps I see brands falling into when trying to build their CEO’s personal brand: 1. They look at the CEO channel as another way to talk about product The CEO channel is strategy to use to extend the brand’s audience beyond their industry… To do that, you need to focus the message on future vision… Of the world, society and industry. The trap here is using the CEO channel to go deeper into explaining the product. This isn’t the channel for that. 2. They look at the CEO channel as centring around LinkedIn Yes, LinkedIn makes sense as a route to market for CEO brand… But it’s a place to show the other activity as much as being the central channel. Keynotes, events, panels, podcasts… These are the channels you want your CEO to be seen in… LinkedIn can be the place you share this activity but not the strategy as a whole. 3. Failing to leverage the existing audiences that want to hear from your CEO There’s a fair amount of pay to play fatigue in the C-Suite branding space. Brands pay huge sums to see their CEO on a large media corp’s stage. Yes, the audience numbers are superb, but the audience is incredibly broad, and sometimes not so engaged. A more incisive route is to look deeper into the long tail… More niche podcasts, publications, events that have highly engaged audiences with a lot of influence. An even better play here is to create your own platform, that promotes your entire C-Suite, but collaborates with influencers and brands that have the audience you want. I could go on for a while on this… Luckily Performance Marketing World wanted to hear more on the subject and have published my thoughts on the link below… Hope you enjoy 👇