Founder, P33 | Executive Thought Leadership Agency

Helped 50+ B2B tech companies build their Founder/CEO Brand and implement Executive Thought Leadership Programs for LinkedIn. Customers, results & process: project33.io

About me:

I'm Finn, 29, grew up in Bremen, Germany, studied Physics & Philosophy in Heidelberg for 3 semesters, dropped out of college in 2017 because I was doing it for other people, flew to New York with no plans, documented the journey on Linkedin, Instagram and Youtube, and started my first company (Project 33) on the back of having grown a small audience. We're a small remote agency that helps B2B founders & execs create thought leadership content for Linkedin.

In my free time, which I try to have as much as possible of, I read (fav author: Nassim N. Taleb), write, run, lift, code (currently building an app), cook, make Youtube videos, turn books into Instagram accounts, grapple (BJJ), and travel (lived in NYC, Cape Town, Bali, Minsk, CMDX, Lima & Antalya so far). In December 2020 I married the most beautiful woman in the world. In January 2023, I became dad to the most beautiful baby girl. We currently live in Berlin, Germany.

Finn Thormeier

People forget that *high engagement* usually means *easy to engage with*. What's easy to engage with? Short posts, selfies, black/white takes. 

That's the real reason why there's so much of that stuff on Linkedin.

So when your local Linkedin influenster who gets hundreds of likes on every post and whose main product is a $99 course tells you that this is the kind of content your NEED to create, remember:

In B2B, inbound/customers/conversations with VPs+ often come from high trust. 

What builds high trust? Deep insights, balanced/nuanced takes, complete breakdowns - aka stuff that can't be skimmed in 3 seconds.

Top LinkedIn ghostwriting agency for CEOs, founders & execs -- Founder at Project 33 and Host of the Executive Brand Podcast

I discovered Louis Grenier a couple weeks ago - how did it take me so long?? This man grew his LinkedIn to 39,000+ followers and built a successful solo-consulting biz while breaking ALL the rules of LinkedIn the "gurus" want you to believe in:

- Bright orange profile pic
- Uses the F word ALL the time
- Spent $8,500 to produce a YouTube (!) mini-series to market his services
- Wildly mixes his post formats
- Regularly includes links in the post copy
- Publicly ROASTS his sponsors
- Pays zero attention to the algorithm

Dave Gerhardt called him the french Harry Dry

If the all LinkedIn Gurus were right, Louis should be nowhere near where he is today, getting nowhere near the results he's getting.

Want to learn how he does it?

This Thursday at 11am EST, I'm doing a live Zoom call with Louis to ask him about his approach and how, you too, can Stand The F*ck Out. We'll include audience Q&A, so you can bring your own questions.

Join us here: https://lnkd.in/dQ7J9vXh

I strongly believe almost all companies who currently do great marketing, I'd eg. list Clay, PostHog, 37signals, have some version of this mindset when it comes to brand. Here articulated by Chris Evans, co-founder of incident.io. 

You gotta have taste, take some risks, have fun, think about the customer, and just trust that it will all somehow, in the end, benefit your company. You can't measure it and you shouldn't even try. Almost by definition, if you could measure and attribute brand marketing, it would be called demand gen.

In prepping for a podcast episode, I was reading a CEO's Linkedin content today. What stood out to me: I actually LEARNED things. It's crazy that this feels like a rare experience these days on Linkedin.

The posts weren't formatted with tons of bullet points and 5-part lists and one-line paragraphs.

The hook was just a regular sentence that didn't feel "optimized"

The overall posts and topics didn't feel engineered - no trend jacking - just grounded lessons from 10 years being in the industry.

The average post of this CEO got 20-40 likes.

There's plenty of people in his space that are getting 10x that.

But he was talking about marketing fundamentals, lessons learned, deeply thought-out takes or rebuttals on current trends, and I actually found myself taking notes, rethinking certain decisions of mind, doing additional research to fully understand his point of view.

Maybe because of this, when I looked at the 20-40 people who did engage, many were CMOs, VPs, CEOs, and a good amount of lengthy comments, people who actually, read, internalized and responded to the post with their own thoughts.

This is much rarer than it should be.

So much of content is performance. Probably my own included. Trying to fit some template. Trying to stick to some "best practices". Optimized and engineered for engagement, which is often a race to the bottom.

My sense is that this CEO has his own quality bar. Decides what to publish based on what *he* deems insightful, not what the algorithm is nudging him towards. Maybe I'm wrong here.

We should normalize publishing content we feel PROUD of, in the style that feels like ourselves - that's the bar.

My podcast episode with Jessica Gilmartin is live!!! Jessica has an insanely impressive track record: CMO at Calendly, Head of Revenue Marketing at Asana, Head of Product Marketing at Google. Today, she advises founders and first-time CMOs through $100M ARR on marketing, GTM strategy, hiring and org design.

And last week, she joined me on The Executive Brand podcast.

What we cover:

- Why CMO + CRO combo roles usually fail
- Why companies now hire CMOs from smaller, scrappier startups
- Where AI is truly useful vs pure hype
- Why random acts of marketing kill momentum
- How Calendly moved from viral PLG to focused enterprise ABM
- The real reason CMOs only last 18 months
- Why taste, courage, and focus still matter more than tools
- And much more

Listen here:

-- YouTube: https://lnkd.in/grQb6kgv
-- Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gpBmkJWg
-- Apple: https://lnkd.in/gXPSpKEU
-- Substack: https://lnkd.in/gBeDP56X

Some of my takeaways:

1. We’ll replace most of our day-to-day work with AI in 5-10 years. But right now board members are mandating AI adoption without specific use cases. The reality is AI is making teams 10-20% more efficient and that it works as an enabler, but not as a replacement. The best use cases she’s seeing are data enrichment for lead prioritization, competitive research for product marketing, and using LLMs as synthetic customer panels

2. There are three paths to CMO: via product marketing, via demand gen, and via brand. In B2B, 50% of CMOs come from product marketing, 50% from demand gen, almost none from brand. That might be an opportunity

3. CEOs keep hiring the wrong CMO. They want a unicorn who's great at both strategic messaging (product marketing) and growth (demand gen). It’s like finding an engineer who's great at backend AND designing beautiful interfaces. Hire for your actual problem/bottleneck right now, not the one you’ll have at $100M

4. Attribution is broken and that’s okay. You’re getting 70-80% accuracy at best. Jessica’s approach is to use the 80-20 rule. Get directionally correct data so teams understand where they can make impact and then work from there. The bigger issue is that companies wait too long to implement basic data and reporting infrastructure

5. Random acts of marketing kill focus. At Calendly, Jessica pivoted the entire team to one thing: repositioning for enterprise customers. Marketers hate focus and they want to sprinkle seeds everywhere. But the winning strategy is making big bets, being explicit about trade-offs, and ensuring no one goes off track

Reminder: your most interesting thoughts are those you want to keep to yourself.

LinkedIn Playbook with Jess Cook and Joshua Perk of Vector 👻

Various Companies

• Provide strategic HR consulting services to clients across various industries, advising on all aspects of people management from recruitment to retirement, including employee relations, conflict resolution, disciplinary measures & grievance handling.
• Conduct HR audits & assessments to identify areas for improvement & recommend solutions to drive efficiency & ensure compliance with labor regulations.
• Design, review & implement people policies & procedures tailored to clients' specific needs, ensuring alignment with company goals & global standards.
• Lead HR & business operations overseeing budgeting, workforce planning, vendor management, process optimization, recruitment, onboarding, training & development, performance management & employee engagement initiatives.
• Offer coaching & guidance to managers and employees on people-related matters, including career development, 1:1s, feedback & performance improvement strategies.
• Develop & deliver corporate training programs related to the assigned program or section area.
• Act as a certified PoSH member, handling compliance, sensitization, counseling, case management & external member responsibilities.
• Conduct thorough investigations into complaints or grievances as required, ensuring fair & impartial resolution.
• Adopt & utilize appropriate HR technologies to enhance operational efficiency.
• Carry out benchmarking analysis of pay, benefits & other factors to ensure client's competitive market presence & employee satisfaction.
• Provide guidance and leadership on specialized HR projects, collaborating closely with senior leadership to develop & implement business strategies that support growth & sustainability.
• Offer mentorship to both novice & HR professionals, offering guidance, sharing knowledge & imparting industry insights & best practices to empower them in advancing their careers & creating a positive work culture.

Fractional Director People | Consultant | Advisor | Mentor

topmate.io

Connect with me at https://topmate.io/wristy

Advisor & Mentor 

Zippin

• Spearhead the development of People infrastructure in collaboration with leadership, driving digital transformation to elevate the global strategic plan, focusing on company and culture assimilation.
• Serve as collaborative partner, offering support to business unit leadership and cross-functional teams, including Engineering, Customer Support, Sales & Customer Success, Marketing & Communication, Finance and People.
• Drive People strategies and programs for scaling product organisation – aligning to rapidly changing business needs during 2x growth.
• Coach all levels of managers, guiding them in team management, recognition, development and growth, while delivering feedback, through tailored programs and 1-1 sessions.
• Champion education and efforts on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at global level, continuously developing an inclusive workplace.
• Align People initiatives with business objectives cultivating highly engaged and high performing teams.
• Implement and educate teams on PoSH; serving as Presiding Officer for the Internal Committee.
• Develop comprehensive HR integration project plans, outlining milestones, activities, and dependencies for People team work-streams.
• Lead implementation of e-systems (Lattice, HiBob, Ashby, Carta, Zoho, Bonus.ly, Percipio, Gather) to create robust and agile processes.
• Partner productive relationships with parent company and vendor partners, establishing Service Partnership Agreements to drive collaborative success.

Senior People Manager (India Admin Director)

Sannam S4

• Serve as Global Strategic Lead for Board Members & Global Leadership, providing ongoing guidance on governance, process & alignment with organizational strategic priorities through continuous discussions & active engagement with leaders. 
• Cultivate strong relationships across client organizations - trusted partner among employees & leadership.
• Collaborate with Global People Partners to plan & manage people budgets; coach, build capacity & manage teams both internally & at the Client, encouraging both sides to learn & provide feedback.
• Measure overarching goals that encompass regional & local nuances, ensuring flexibility to support diverse teams effectively.
• Optimize people infrastructure by process re-engineering, improving operational efficiencies & people experience; continually evaluating effectiveness of People Programs through stakeholder feedback to drive continuous improvement. 
• Implement & leverage e-systems such as Workday, KEKA, Darwin Box, G-Suite, BOX, etc.; utilizing data insights for informed decision making.
• Steer HR Service Delivery & Talent Management as a key face of HR practice, collaborating with cross-functional teams-internally & at Client; partnering the absolute project life-cycle.
• Lead a variety of HR projects including Company Transition, Automation, PoSH Basket, Audit, Benchmarking, Community Development, Transformation & Establishment of New Entity; involved in international projects as a part of a larger global team & with multi-competency, by focusing on relationship building, feasibility, quality, compliance & policies. 
• Contribute to internal practice by producing content for blogs, brochures, webinars, on topics such as DEI knowledge hub, global HR market trends, employment guides, business practices, PoSH, etc. 
• Identify revenue generation opportunities with direct accounts & other clients, supporting the Business Development team in proposal writing, solution to client queries & define engagement scope.

Manager - HR Advisory

Charities Aid Foundation

• Head HR and Admin functions; trusted advisor to leadership team on people strategies and initiatives.
• Act as a Member of PoSH IC, overseeing delivery PoSH policy, training and survey.
• Design and lead all HR programs, including total rewards, employee benefit, performance management, learning & development, retention and engagement; restructured reporting process and re-designed employee processes.
• Project, maximize and evenly allocate resources, ensuring accurate forecasting of resource utilisation.
• Implement and administer Sensys software; responsible for analytics and MIS.
• Coach, guide management team on People relations and employee development; mentor new managers offering feedback and support in evolving roles. 
• Ownership of HR Audit spot checks and completion of HR compliances.
• Provide consulting on HR projects to NGO Partners, advising on people matters and conducting HR Audit; advise on processes restructuring and deliver capacity-building workshops.
• Introduce various initiatives, including wellness program, internship and campus recruitment program.

Senior Manager - Human Resources and Administration 

HR Partner Services

• Business partner with various global companies spanning technology, e-commerce, media and development space providing subject matter expertise; supporting and leading organizational capability development.
• Engage with key stakeholders on policy review, audit, e-onboarding, establish HR unit, e-learning, process improvements and other strategic initiatives. 
• Lead end-to-end HR project delivery on a regional level, serving as primary liaison between clients and global/local offices; collaborate with cross-functional team heads to ensure standards, quality and compliance.
• Drive people elements of culture and change management, supporting transformation across the client company.
• Collaborate with CoEs to tailor HR solutions to meet specific needs of the client, act as a steward of the HR Operating Model; execute people strategies with HR teams of multiple client business groups.
• Implement and utilize multiple software platforms, including Oracle, Workday, Zoho and Sensys. 
• Contribute to long-term goals around business and people development, including succession planning and talent acquisition.
• Stay abreast of leading best-practice and industry trends, partnering with professional associations.
• Counsel and mentor team members – internally and at Client.

Senior HR

Oxfam India

• Structure HR department for operational excellence; managing and developing HR operations throughout India.
• Solely implement Oracle Version 12 for India; earmarked as Master Trainer.
• Manage Saral software; develop reports and decks for Board meetings and executive leadership meetings.
• Lead successful HR audits across all India offices, ensuring compliance and best practices.
• Drive various People initiatives aligned with organizational goals and objectives.
• Conduct job evaluations considering external and internal factors, leading to organization restructuring.
• Accomplish India-wide recruitment and design multi-media new hire orientation program.
• Collaborate with executive leadership to design change strategy and implement change initiatives.

HR Officer

Pathfinder International

• Set up India HR Strategy, Policy and Operations, laying the groundwork for the HR function by developing comprehensive policies, procedures, and programs. Appreciated by the Headquarter in Boston.
• Build successful relationships across organization, becoming trusted partner among employees and leadership.
• Capture pulse of employees through rigorous field visits, line HR interface, communication platforms, retention plans and survey rollouts; deploy best practices by conducting various benchmarking exercises.
• Facilitate change initiatives and coach managers with continuous inputs from people issues.
• Lead special initiatives including “Performance Plus”, a 360-degree performance management process, leveraging KPI data to identify training needs; build employee benefit programs.
• Actively engaged with key business stakeholders for qualitative recruitment across all levels, strengthening pre joining and on-boarding processes.
• Monitor HR budget, keeping a track of expense allocation for sound management decision-making.
• Publish Dashboards to the Global team, ensuring transparency and alignment across regions.
• Member of the PI Global Core Group, promoting “One PI Culture” and “Employee Engagement Initiatives”. Recognized for an internal paper on “Rewards & Recognition”.

Profam Healthcare Private Limite

• First Human Resource hire; built HR function from ground up developing all policies, processes, systems, budgeting and organization to support the scale up.
• Lead talent acquisition, growing team by 30X across functions over 20 months.
• Leverage TNA to conduct employee training programs using consultants; evaluating effectiveness and feedback.
• Seamlessly implement JBM tool from inception-to-completion, automating and integrating HR and Payroll.
• Administer the entire employee lifecycle, from on-boarding to separation including payroll processing; ensuring compensation program into full compliance.
• Conduct internal audits and serve as the company's representative during external audits.
• Manage employee relations through interaction sessions; initiatives such as rewards, recognition and insurances.
• Drive various surveys such as compensation benchmarking, employee satisfaction, organizational perspectives to inform strategic decision-making and enhance overall employee experience.

HR Generalist

CMJ University

• Research on Recent Trends of Talent Management: Indian Internationally Operating Business.
• Teaching the Human Resources Master's Course.

PHD Researcher

Global People Advisor & Leader (Culture, PoSH, Partnerships, DEIB) | Experience Catalyst

A dedicated and results-driven People Leader and EDI Ambassador, with extensive experience in successfully partnering with fast-paced teams across diverse sectors including AI/Tech Product, Management Consulting, E-commerce/Retail, Fashion Lifestyle, Foods & Beverages, Education, Petrochemical, NGO and Foundation, spanning national and global organisations in India, US, UK, Europe, UAE, Canada, Egypt, etc.

A proactive and results-oriented partner with hands-on experience in all aspects of people practices and strategies for companies from early to growth and pre-IPO stages as well as established companies. Easily pivots from strategic to tactical support of leaders and teams, developing and executing HR strategies, fostering positive employee relations and optimising HR processes. Collaborate with senior leadership to align HR programs with business goals, resulting in improved employee engagement, retention and performance. 

Experience in team management and individual contributor roles; collaborating with project-based global teams managing financial impacts. Seeking to leverage extensive experience to drive positive organisational change and foster inclusive workplaces.

taplio

The Battle

Finn Thormeier

Wristy _.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreFinn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Finn Thormeier

Wristy _.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Finn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreFinn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance