I’ve wanted to work in social media from the age of 10.

I know that sounds hard to believe, but it's true. Hear me out...

I got my first iPhone and started creating YouTube videos from my bedroom.

Fast forward 14 years, and my passion for social media is bigger than ever. 

One thing that’s stayed the same over the last decade? 

The power of creating great content that resonates with your people.

I leverage that same principle with my personal brand. 

I don't create content for the sake of creating content. 

I work with my community to understand their goals and challenges and then craft posts to help answer marketing concerns. 

So, if you’re looking for a space where it feels like you’re chatting with a friend about the latest TikTok trends or why you should start your personal brand, you've come to the right place.

Feel free to reach out via DM anytime - I'd love to have a chat. 

Or if you’re feeling a bit shy, no worries, just hit that follow button and tap the notification bell to stay in the loop.

Ellie Nash

Jake Summerhayes

Working with founders and business Leaders to craft powerful and authentic personal brands. 

Why? Because reputation matters. 

- 82% of customers trust a company when their senior management members are active on social media

- Brand messages are shared 24x more on personal accounts compared to company accounts

- Customers are willing to pay 13.5x more for elite industry experts

Yet only 1% of LinkedIn's 700 million users share weekly content. 

Our mission at Kurogo is to solve that.

Kurogo is derived from the Japanese ‘Kuroko’ referring to the black clad stagehands in traditional Japanese theatre.

The convention of wearing black implying the invisibility of the wearer on stage. 

We are your Kurogo. 

Directing, driving and delivering your personal brand from the background. 

Giving you the spotlight to excel in what you do best.

Head Of Client Services

I routinely ask our team members to fuck off.

When they:

- Open client chats while on holiday
- Message me when they’re off
- Refuse to step away while being ill
- Go far beyond the scope when unnecessary
- Don’t take enough breaks
- Log on to do some “quick work” on weekends

I’ve far from mastered work-life balance, but I don’t buy into the hustle culture nonsense for one second.

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FHEQ Level 7 Modules:
•	Digital Marketing Current and Emerging Technologies
•	Digital Marketing in Context
•	Marketing, Consumer and Business Insights
•	Digital Marketing Campaign Management
•	Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning
•	Research Methods for Digital Marketing

FHEQ Level 6 Modules
•	Globalisation and Business
•	Managerial Decision Making and Change
•	Managing Projects
•	Researching and Developing a Business Plan for a New Venture
•	Strategy for Sustainability

FHEQ Level 5 Modules:
•	Contemporary Issues in Management
•	Managing People and Organisations
•	Quality Operations Management
•	Retail Management
•	Small Business Management and Accounts

FHEQ Level 4 Modules:
•	Principles of Marketing
•	Business and Society
•	Business Economics
•	Intro to Management and Finance
•	Academic Study Skills

Head of Client Services @ Kurogo | We create thought leaders through Personal Branding

Took over as Secretary in 2021 following the retirement of our previous secretary who had been with the club since the mid 90's.

Essentially the role involves taking full ownership of all administrative duties that enable the club and its members to function effectively. In doing so I work closely with external stakeholders (FA, match venues, league admins, other clubs etc.) while also being the central point for all internal communications.

As part of the NCS award myself and a small team of other sixth form students took part in various community activities in order to better understand important social issues within Liverpool. For the finale of the award we were tasked with organizing an event that would benefit the wider community. After meeting with a variety of community leaders we organised to run a sports day Palmerston High School, an SEN school based in Aigburth. I continued to volunteer with Positive Futures after the NCS award taking part in various different fundraising activities over the next year before heading to university.

Client Services Director @ Kurogo | We create thought leaders through Personal Branding

Jack Gonzalez Hart

If I should die, make sure not to cancel the standups,
If I should die, finish off my client reports,
If I should die, activate my out of office.

Unable are the loved to die, for the value we build for shareholders is immortality.

Life before Bailey:

- Nail 4 Red Bulls a day
- Logging onto Slack at 9:15am
- Stay up till 1 am watching TikToks

Life after getting him:

- Up at 6am for morning walks
- Client retention is up 23% (coincidence? don’t think so)
- Team love me more when they see him chilling in my office on calls
- I have to get up and go outside multiple times a day to take him on walks
- More LinkedIn clout as a dog parent

If you’re struggling for routine/structure, get a dog 🐶❤️

P.S. Should I start building his personal brand or am I too late already?

"How do I get a job at Kurogo"?

We’re adding a new team member almost every month right now, and I get asked this question every week.

Here’s what you must believe to thrive at Kurogo 👇🏻

- Radical responsibility
If you say you will do something, you do it.
No blaming, no excuses, no “busy week mate”.
You own your work, your learning, and your tasks.
So you gotta pull your weight.

- Constant improvement
You look at your work and ask where you can push more.
You ask for feedback. You take it on the chin.
You give feedback with care.
You care about getting better every week.

- Client obsession
Clients are the lifeblood.
You think about them before you think about yourself.
You go beyond the scope when it is right.
You are more ambitious for their brand than they are.

- Equality
Titles aren't the most impressive thing to us.
Age does not matter.
Great ideas can come from any voice on the call.
You treat everyone with respect.
Above all, you are kind in a hard industry.

- Pride in the basics
You meet deadlines.
You keep your promises.
You communicate clearly and often.
You deliver work accurately the first time.
You take pride in things most people are lazy about.

At Kurogo, the people we hire are the foundation of our success.

I can say with utmost certainty right now that every person on the team is one of the best at what they do. 

Honestly, what more can you want as a leader?

More than half of our hires over the past year have discovered the company through one team member’s personal brand.

And this lad isn’t even a part of our senior team.

Now imagine how much top talent you can attract if everyone from your leadership team were building their personal brands.

If you want the best people to join your business, don’t sleep on EGC (employee-generated content).

Post through personal profile = good 👍
Post only through company profile = waste 👎
Don’t post anything ever = bad 👎👎

Optimise your profile and post = good 👍
Not optimise your profile and post = waste 👎
Not optimise your profile and no post = bad 👎👎

Post well written, formatted content to help people = good 👍
Post unoptimised random content to help people = waste 👎
Post motivational quotes with no value = bad 👎👎

Connect with targeted people and network = good 👍
Connect with random people and no talk = waste 👎
Connect with everyone and pitch = f*cking 👎👎

--

Download our full guide to personal branding (see comments) = good 👍

Kurogo - Personal Branding Agency Branding Agency turned 5 last month, so we asked our team why they love working here, this is what they said 👇🏻❤️

We asked our team what the best part of their job is 

The true cost of not building a personal brand is that:

Reputation compounds, but so does silence.

The market doesn’t reward hidden operators.

It rewards visible thinkers.

You don’t need to be an influencer.
You just need to be findable.

Because when recruiters, founders, or investors look you up and see nothing…

You’ve already lost half the battle.

📷 - me when Sam G. Winsbury asks me to post more InDuStRy InSiGhTs

We’re a team of 21 people in 3 continents.

These 5 tools stop us from going insane having meetings all day ⬇️

1. Slack: every time I have to use Teams I almost cry
2. Loom: NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS A 60 MINS MEETING
3. Fathom: so that I don’t have to rely on my brain to remember stuff
4. Notion: makes complicated shit easier, also makes everything look good
5. Canva: makes creativity easy for artistically challenged people 🙋🏻‍♂️

When your content is so dangerously good, LinkedIn decides to keep it a secret.

We’ve packaged the system we use to build personal brands that actually drive revenue into one  guide:

🚨 How To Become The Authority, Sign More Clients and Grow Your Business In 2026.

Growing a business in 2026 is a bit of a minefield.
What worked a few years ago doesn’t work the same anymore.

Cold outreach gets ignored.
Ads get more expensive.
Buyers take longer to decide.

And the most frustrating bit…
You’ll often see competitors who aren’t even as good doing better than you.

It’s not luck.
The market has changed.
People don’t buy like they did in 2016 anymore.

Back then, it was simple:
Ad → Click → Buy.

Now the journey is messy.

Prospects research you.
Check your profile.
Look at your content.
Ask their network.
Watch you for months before reaching out.

So when you consistently share your thinking, ideas and expertise online:

- Prospects trust you before the first call
- Sales cycles shorten
- Your content becomes a 24/7 salesperson
- Opportunities come to you instead of the other way around

That’s exactly what this guide breaks down.

Inside you’ll find:

→ The 9-step Authority Engine we use with clients
→ How to position yourself so people actually listen
→ The G-A-C content system that drives growth, trust and clients
→ How to social sell without being a LinkedIn knobhead
→ The lead capture and conversion ecosystem that turns attention into revenue

If you’re a founder or marketing leader trying to grow in 2026, this is the system that’s working right now.

To get free access:

1. Like this post
2. Comment “AUTHORITY”
3. Make sure you’re following me so I can share ✅

“I don’t want to be one of those LinkedIn people.” Fair.

But the issue is… 

You’re already being judged.

By:

- Prospective hires.
- Agencies pitching you.
- Founders considering you.
- Recruiters building lists.

And if the only thing they see is:
“Head of Marketing at X” (company name, not platform)

You look like everyone else.

Your thinking is your edge.
But if you never publish it, it has zero market value.

I’m not saying go the random selfies and hustle posts route.

But in 2026, documented perspective matters more than ever, because:

If you don’t shape your narrative, someone else will (usually poorly).

So with that in mind, what impression do you get of me from this work setup?

This is who you’re talking to when you say you’re ‘taking it in-house’ btw

Personal branding is NOT about boosting your ego.

It’s the system that turns quiet experts into market leaders.

Personal branding is actually ridiculously simple:
- Show your work
- Show your thinking
- Stop hiding behind a logo

The market doesn’t buy from ghosts.

We work with founders and leaders every day.
The ones who grow fast aren’t always the smartest.
They’re just the most visible experts in the room.

They’re not loud.
But they’re visible.
Big difference.

Personal branding done right is not “look at me, I’m special”.
It’s:

→ Here is how I think
→ Here is how I solve problems
→ Here is proof I do it in the real world

People trust that more than a shiny website and a values slide.

Numbers back it up:
- 82% of customers trust a company more when leaders show up online
- Brand messages spread 24x more through people than company pages
- Customers pay more to the expert they know by name

So when leaders say “I don’t have time for LinkedIn”, I hear:
“I don’t have time to build trust at scale.”

Your content is the only thing that wins you deals while you sleep.

So it’s up to you…

You can either control your reputation or let silence do the talking for you.

If you want to control your reputation and become the authority, but don’t know how to begin, start here: https://lnkd.in/e_KKi5ZG

Right here's the truth with LinkedIn content:

Your first two lines decide everything. Fuck them up and your post is invisible.

You can spend an hour on a post.
Pour your soul into it.
Share your best framework.

But if the hook is weak, nobody sees it.
You are shouting into the void.

I like big views.
I love leads more.

We use a simple way to write posts that both grow and sell:

1️⃣ First: find the right angle

Same idea.
Two options:

- “5 tips to write content”
- “How I pulled 100,000 views from one post”

One is homework.
One is clicks 💷

Good angles:

- Create curiosity
- Feel unexpected
- Go against the crowd
- Sound a bit extreme

“Good and bad” dies.
“Best and worst” wins.

2️⃣ Channel your inner psycho editor

You only get one or two lines before the reader has to click “see more”.
Miss that and nothing else matters.

Two ways our elite writing team writes hooks:

- Cliffhangers for stories
- Promising value for how-to posts

Then we stack the posts with:

→ Personal proof
→ Clear payoff
→ Numbers
→ Key pain points of one clear person we're speaking to

“I got 187,392 views with this hook framework. Here is how you steal it.”

That gets clicks from the right people.

3️⃣ Deliver or get called clickbait

Once they click, we owe them.
We keep the body:

- Stupid simple (grade 8 level)
- Full of white space
- Built around a clear process or framework

High perceived value + low effort to read = holy grail.

Your hook wins attention.
Your post's body earns trust.
Both together build authority 🤝🏻

I'm in a generous mood today, so here are 228 of our best hooks:

https://lnkd.in/e5fX5YKT

P.S.

Join our waitlist for free personal branding workshops (no pitches ever, I promise)

https://lnkd.in/exVYf5Pc

If your leaders are invisible online, your company might already be losing the trust game.

Your board think “brand” is logos.
Your execs think “visibility” is speaking at one conference a year.
Your marketing team post safe beige nonsense from the company page.

Meanwhile, your buyers stalk people, not PDFs.

They check who runs the place.
What they believe.
How they think.

82% of customers trust a company more when senior leaders show up on social.

Leaders who:

- Share how they make decisions
- Admit when they got it wrong
- Talk like a human, not a press release

When a CEO posts every week, three things happen:

1. Trust goes up.
People see a real person, not a logo, behind the promise.

2. Influence goes up.
Decision makers think “I know how this person thinks, I can bet on them.”

3. Alignment goes up.
Teams stop guessing the strategy, because they can read it in plain sight.

—

Personal branding for leaders is not vanity.

It is how you export your judgement at scale.

It is how you turn “our values” from poster fluff into visible behaviour.

💬 If you don’t know where to start, grab our free guide from the link in the comments, it’s a new resource we built to help you leverage LinkedIn to scale your business, reputation, and audience.

LinkedIn is a lot like dating.

And there are two types of people on LinkedIn.
(Both are doing it wrong).

- First type:

They propose on the first date.
They connect with you and immediately hit you with:
“Hey mate. Loved your profile. Want to jump on a quick call to discuss how we can 10x synergies?”

Instant ick.

- Second type:

They never propose at all.
They post for months.
They get followers.
They get DMs like “this is really good”.
They get profile views.

And they do absolutely nothing with it because they’re scared of being “salesy”.

So they stay in the talking stage forever. Neither wins.

The sweet spot is what we call hand raises 🙋🏻‍♂️

That’s when someone is basically telling you:
“I’m interested in what you do.”

Examples of hand raises:

• They view your profile
• They like and comment regularly
• They follow you after a strong post
• They join your newsletter
• They DM you with an actual question
• They keep showing up

These are hot prospects.
Not because they’re ready to buy today.

But because you’re already on their radar.
So your job is not to pitch them.

Your job is to start a normal conversation and nudge.

➡️ Here’s the simple play:

1. Spot the hand raise

Profile views. Repeat engagers. New followers.

2. Send a normal message

No pitch. No calendar link. No “just circling back”.
Something like:
“Alright mate. Seen you’ve been engaging on a few posts. What side of marketing are you focused on this year?”

3. Listen, then help

If they mention a problem, you can share something useful.

4. Only then offer a next step

If they keep asking questions, they’re basically inviting it.

—

If you want the full breakdown of how to sell effectively on LinkedIn, we put the blueprint in this ultimate guide. I’ll leave a link to it in the comments for you.

Most founders post for likes. 
Smart founders post for leads.

Here is how I think about content when we build accounts at Kurogo:

This is based on: 

→ building 350 accounts
→ Writing over 40,000 posts 
→ hundreds of millions of views)

Your content has 3 jobs, not 1:

- Growth content → pull new people into your world
- Authority content → prove you are the safe, obvious choice
- Conversion content → move buyers from “interested” to “where do I pay?”

Miss one of these and you’re wasting your time. 

Every post should look like this:

- Hook that stops the scroll
- Clear point of view
- Proof you’re not chatting nonsense
- Takeaway or CTA
- Ideally, a complementary image

Not viral cringe fluff.
Not vague “authentic” nonsense.
Not oversharing for your dopamine fix.

Just ideas/opinions from lived experience.

Hope this helps ✌️

80% of businesses fall into one of two marketing camps. Both are shite.

➡️ Camp 1: No marketing

These are the people who say:
“We just focus on doing great work. It speaks for itself.”

Lovely sentiment.
But in 2026, great work is table stakes.
There are thousands of people doing good work in every industry.
If nobody knows about yours, congratulations.
You’ve become the best-kept secret in your industry.

➡️ Camp 2: Send and spend

These are the people who say:

“Just send more emails.”
“Run more ads.”
“Book more cold calls.”

So they:

- Blast cold emails
- Hammer the phones
- Spend a fortune on ads

And yeah… they convert 0.1% of people.
Which technically works.

But the moment they stop sending or spending, the pipeline disappears overnight.

It’s basically marketing on life support.

—

What if I told you there’s a third option?

➡️ Authority Positioning

Instead of chasing attention every day,
You build a reputation that brings people to you through:

- Content
- Ideas
- Perspective
- Proof

Suddenly, prospects show up already knowing you.
Already trusting you.
Already halfway sold.

We see it every week.
Someone messages our clients saying:
“Been seeing your posts for months. Can we talk?”

That’s not magic.
That’s what happens when trust is built before the sales call.

—

If you want the full breakdown of how this works, we’ve just put it into a step-by-step system called:

💡 The Authority Engine.

It covers:

- Positioning
- Content strategy
- Profile optimisation
- Social selling
- Lead capture

Basically, it teaches you how to stop chasing leads and start attracting them.

I’m not selling you anything, just drop me a DM saying “TAE” and I’ll share free access 😊

📷 - How the team used this exact system to get these insane results for Shan Hanif

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The Battle

Ellie Nash

Jake Summerhayes

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The Battle

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Jake Summerhayes

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jake Summerhayes's LinkedIn Performance

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