To build sustainable business value, you start with the goal, then earn the reputation that makes it possible.

At Reputation Sherpa, we guide CEOs and leadership teams to work backwards from their growth targets to define the reputation they need to achieve them. Then we help make it real.

Clients have attributed nearly half a billion dollars in added business value to this process.
Because when your reputation is clear, every path to growth gets easier:

--> Clients choose you faster
--> Employees stay longer
--> Investors see greater value

Using our CARAT framework (Credibility, Attention, Relatability, Authority, and Trust) we help turn your invisible wins into visible credibility.

Our frameworks are built on more than 15 years of research, psychology, and results across sectors from professional services to tech and infrastructure.

The outcome is a stronger reputation, inside and out, that amplifies your brand, builds stakeholder confidence, and increases the future value of your business.

If you’re ready to start with the goal and build the reputation that gets you there, let’s talk.

For insights on proactive reputation building, or to start a conversation, let's connect.

Jo Kinner

In large bodies of water, there's a depth at which the temperature drops sharply. 

The thermocline. It's an invisible barrier that keeps the warm surface water from mixing with the cold depths below.

A while ago, I came across a piece by John Bull that made sense to me. He described the point at which trust collapses and clients rapidly and unexpectedly leave their service provider. 

He called it the 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 because the business doesn't see it coming.

In supplier/client relationships, small issues accumulate. 

--> Prices steadily increase with no added value
--> Service quality reduces over time
--> Fewer features cost the same, or more

Clients tolerate individual issues without a change in behaviour (partly due to the hassle of finding an alternative). 

On the surface they appear loyal. Yet trust has eroded underneath. 

Once the thermocline is reached, clients leave rapidly. Leaders often look for the 'final trigger' and aim to reverse it. But trust builds over time, and they find the reversal doesn't restore the client relationship.

What can you do? Just as divers prepare for a change in water temperature and density they can't see coming, business leaders need to know what lurks in the depths of their stakeholders' minds. 

If there's nothing niggling, that's a great outcome. If there is, knowing about it can spare you the pressure (and cost). 

If you'd like to know what's on the minds of 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 key stakeholders, let's connect. I've been helping companies surface stakeholder issues early for 19 years.  

----
I'm Jo from Reputation Sherpa. I help business leaders use reputation as a strategic tool to build long term value in their company and brand.

Take your business further with a higher reputation | We guide you | Founding Partner at Reputation Sherpa

I’ve tried this on behalf of a client and the insights are next level! Plus I know how much time went into building it. Give it a go while the free offer is there.👏👏

I've met a lot of founders who make decisions based on instinct, plus maybe a Google search or a chat with ChatGPT.

There’s a much better way. . .

I’ve been building a suite of AI decision-support tools for startup founders. The first of these is the AI Startup Analyst.

It uses a knowledge base built on more than a decade of work with 2,000 startups, to give founders the kind of insights they'd normally only get from an experienced advisor or investor.

It reviews your website, reads your pitch deck or business plan, analyses the competitive landscape, researches funding activity in your sector, and generates insights that would take an experienced analyst days to come up with.

You won't get this from chatting with your favourite LLM. This deep analysis is shaped by hands-on experience, seeing what works and what doesn’t in real startups.

In 10 minutes, the AI Startup Analyst delivers:
👉 A detailed, fully-referenced PDF report with insights and practical recommendations
👉 An audio version of the report you can listen to on the go, generated using industry-leading text-to-speech models from ElevenLabs.

Amy McDougall, founder of VeriWorth, used the AI Startup Analyst and told me: “This is some of the most practical and grounding startup advice I've received. Blows my mind that this is possible!”

I’m officially launching it today, and giving FREE access to the first TEN founders who want to try it.

If you’d like an AI Startup Analyst report for your company, comment ANALYST or DM me. Connect with me and I’ll DM you a link. 
[UPDATE: I've allocated all the free places. You can still check out the AI Startup Analyst at https://lnkd.in/gFC8NzA2]

#AI #startup #analyst

Passion for learning and eager to explore and discover new things. Let’s grow together! 🚀

I’m a Senior IT Project/Program Manager and enterprise transformation leader with 15+ years of experience driving modernization, automation, and large-scale systems delivery across Fortune 50 and mid-market organizations.

I specialize in bringing order to complexity, designing operating models, eliminating friction, and turning high-stakes initiatives into predictable, repeatable execution at scale.

Over time, I’ve seen a consistent pattern:
high performers rarely stall because of execution gaps, they stall because their impact isn’t evaluated the way leadership actually makes decisions.

My work sits at the intersection of delivery and decision-making. I help translate execution into the signals executives look for: clarity, judgment, risk awareness, and enterprise-level impact.

My experience spans digital transformation, workflow automation, AI-enabled solutions, and enterprise system design, from modernizing legacy platforms to improving cross-functional alignment in complex, global environments.

I partner closely with executives, engineers, analysts, and operational leaders to strengthen governance, reduce churn, and accelerate decision-making as complexity increases.

Core strengths include:
• Designing and modernizing enterprise systems and workflows
• Leading multi-region, high-visibility programs
• Integrating automation, AI, and Power Platform solutions into existing ecosystems
• Building governance models that support faster, more confident leadership decisions
• Communicating with clarity at every level of the organization

Outside of work, I believe in pairing structured systems with personal rhythm. Dancing is my reset button and that same balance shows up in how I lead: steady, intentional, and centered under pressure.

If you’re building ambitious transformation programs or strengthening enterprise delivery, I’m always open to connecting.

Vanessa M Diaz

Promotions aren’t rewards for what you did.

They’re bets on how you’ll think next.

High performers think promotions reward past results.

They don't.

Promotions are a bet on your future judgment.

When leadership considers you for the next level, they're not just reviewing what you've delivered.

They're asking a different question:

"Would I trust this person with a bigger, messier problem?"

That shift changes everything.

Because past performance proves you can execute.

But future judgment proves you can think.

It shows you understand:

• When to push back vs. when to align
• How to navigate ambiguity without constant guidance
• Which problems matter and which don't
• How your decisions ripple across teams

Most people optimize their work to look good in reviews.

The ones who get promoted optimize their work to build trust in their judgment.

They make leadership's decision obvious.

Not by doing more.

By showing they can handle what comes next.

The gap between "strong performer" and "ready for promotion" isn't about output.

It's about demonstrating judgment before the title requires it.

Start making decisions like you already have the role.

That's when progression stops being a question.

What signals do you think leadership uses to decide someone is ready for the next level before the title ever changes?

Vanessa M Diaz PMP

IT Project Manager | Executive Performance & AI Leverage | Translating Execution into Strategic Impact

At senior levels, execution is assumed.

What gets evaluated is judgment and most PMs never surface it.

Senior PMs don't plateau because they can't execute.

They plateau because they optimize execution while leadership evaluates judgment.

Here's the difference:

Execution answers: "Did the plan run smoothly?"

Judgment answers: "Did we choose the right plan given our constraints?"

Most senior PMs stay invisible at the decision level.

They ship features on time.
They unblock teams efficiently.
They run flawless sprints.

But leadership never sees their thinking.

The work speaks, but the reasoning stays silent.

And that's the problem.

When promotion conversations happen, leadership asks:

"Can they make the hard calls?"
"Do they see around corners?"
"Can they navigate ambiguity?"

If your judgment isn't visible, the answer defaults to "we don't know."

The fastest way to change how leadership sees you isn't doing more.

It's making your thinking visible at the decision level.

Show the tradeoffs you weighed.
Explain why you chose path A over path B.
Surface the constraints that shaped your call.

Execution gets you to senior.

Judgment gets you past it.

When leadership talks about your impact, are they recalling your decisions or just your delivery?

The higher you go, the less clarity you get.

And that’s not a bug in senior roles.
It’s the job.

One of the hardest truths about senior roles:

They don't reward you for having answers.

They reward you for navigating ambiguity.

Here's what nobody tells you about climbing the ladder:

Junior roles optimize for execution.

Senior roles optimize for judgment.

The shift?

Early career:
• Clear problems to solve
• Defined success metrics
• Structured feedback loops

Senior career:
• Messy, undefined problems
• Competing priorities with no right answer
• Success measured in months, not days

I used to think being promoted meant having more certainty.

It meant the opposite.

The higher you go, the less clear the path becomes.

Your job isn't to find the perfect answer.

It's to make the best decision with incomplete information.

That means:
• Sitting with uncertainty instead of rushing to action
• Weighing trade-offs that all feel wrong
• Making calls that won't show ROI for quarters

Most people stall because they're waiting for clarity.

But clarity doesn't come first.

Judgment does.

Senior leaders don't have better answers.

They're just more comfortable not having them.

They focus on:
• What we're optimizing for
• What we're willing to sacrifice
• How we'll know if we're wrong

Your value at senior levels isn't expertise.

It's the ability to move forward when the path isn't clear.

At your level, are you being evaluated on certainty or on how you move when certainty doesn’t exist?

Most promotions are decided long before the review ever happens.

Promotions don't fail at review time.

They fail months earlier.

Quietly.

When leadership hasn't formed confidence in your judgment yet.

That confidence doesn't appear overnight.

It's built through repeated patterns:

• Making calm decisions when everything's on fire
• Framing tradeoffs clearly instead of hiding complexity
• Communicating predictably when nothing is certain

Most high performers don't stall because they can't do the work.

They stall because no one taught them what leadership actually looks for.

The gap isn't capability.

It's understanding how readiness gets evaluated.

Leadership watches how you handle pressure.
How you simplify complexity.
How you show up when the path isn't clear.

These patterns build trust long before titles change.

And trust is what unlocks the next level.

Not just performance.
Not just results.
Trust in your judgment when stakes are high.

Start building that confidence now.

Not six months before you want the promotion.

What signals are you intentionally sending about your judgment, long before promotion conversations start?

The fastest way to stall your career?

Make yourself impossible to replace.

Most high performers learn this one the hard way.

One of the hardest career lessons:

Being indispensable doesn't make you promotable.

It makes you stuck.

Here's what I learned after years of being "the person who knows everything":

Leadership doesn't promote people they can't replace.

They promote people who make themselves replaceable.

The difference?

Indispensable people:
• Hold all the context
• Become single points of failure
• Create dependency

Promotable people:
• Document their thinking
• Build systems that scale
• Transfer judgment, not just tasks

I used to think being the go-to person proved my value.

It didn't.

It proved I was building a job, not a career.

The shift happened when I stopped asking "How do I make myself essential?" and started asking "How do I make my impact essential?"

That meant:
• Writing down my decision frameworks
• Teaching others to think, not just execute
• Creating clarity that outlasted my presence

Leadership wants people who reduce cognitive load.

Who anticipate second-order effects.

Who create systems that work without them.

Your value isn't in being irreplaceable.

It's in making your judgment scalable.

Are you being rewarded for being essential or for making your impact scalable?

Perfect status updates are how PMs quietly cap their careers.

Most PMs think their job is to report status.

That's why they stay stuck at the IC level.

Senior PMs understand something different:

Your job is to frame decisions.

Let me show you what I mean.

You're launching a feature with incomplete data.

Most PMs say: "We're 80% done. On track for next sprint."

Senior PMs say: "We're shipping with known gaps in analytics. I'm accepting this risk because delaying costs us 3 weeks of learning. If usage drops below 20%, we'll roll back."

See the difference?

One reports progress.
The other owns the outcome.

Decision framing does three things:

• Shows you understand the tradeoffs
• Proves you've mapped the downside
• Demonstrates you're accountable for results

This builds trust faster than any status update ever will.

And trust is what unlocks senior roles.

Your stakeholders don't need another progress report.

They need to know you're making sound choices with incomplete information.

Stop telling people what happened.

Start showing them how you think.


Are you being evaluated for your judgment or just your updates?

Busy PMs report tasks. Promotable PMs report decisions.

The fastest way to get stuck as a "doer PM"?

Report what you did instead of the decisions you made.

Most PMs default to activity updates:
• Shipped feature X
• Ran 5 user interviews
• Updated the roadmap

Senior leaders assume execution. What they evaluate is judgment.

Here's the shift:

Stop saying: "We shipped the new onboarding flow"

Start saying: "We prioritized onboarding over retention features because new user drop-off was costing us 40% of signups. The tradeoff: existing users wait another quarter for their top request."

One sounds like execution.
The other sounds like leadership.

The work is identical.
The framing changes everything.

When you frame decisions, you show:
• You understand tradeoffs
• You own outcomes, not just outputs
• You think like an executive

This is how trust gets built at senior levels.

Not through doing more.
Through showing you can decide what matters.

Start framing your next update as a decision, not a status report.

Watch how the conversation shifts.

When was the last time your update changed how leadership thought about a decision, not just a deliverable?

Leadership doesn’t trust confidence.

They trust composure when certainty disappears.

Leadership doesn't trust the loudest voice in the room.

They trust the PM who stays calm when everything's on fire.

I've watched this play out across dozens of complex programs.

The people who earn real trust aren't the ones with the slickest updates or the fastest answers.

They're the ones who:

• Pause before reacting to bad news
• Surface uncomfortable truths before they become crises
• Don't oversimplify risk just to sound confident

Here's what most PMs get wrong:

They think leadership wants certainty.

What leadership actually wants is honest judgment.

They'd rather hear "I don't know yet, but here's how I'll find out" than a confident answer that falls apart two weeks later.

The PMs who build lasting credibility understand this.

They know that staying calm under pressure isn't about having all the answers.

It's about being honest about what you know, what you don't, and what you're doing about it.

Polished optimism might get you through one meeting.

Calm, honest judgment builds trust that lasts years.

When things get uncertain, does your leadership see your confidence or your judgment?

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