LinkedIn ghost-writing and strategy for CEOs // EO Member

Sales doesn’t fail from lack of ideas. 

It fails when teams default to cold outreach instead of building a system.

Every business owner starts as salesperson, marketer, storyteller, and tribal leader - all in one.

That works well but founder fuel burns fast... 🔥

At first, your energy sells the vision. You’re close to every customer. And you are the leader of your tribe. 

But usually, around the 5–20 employee mark, cracks begin to show. You want to move from working 'in' your business to working 'on' your business - so you hire someone to take over marketing.

Your first junior marketer arrives and…
- Launches a cold outreach campaign.
- Subscribes to HubSpot for $800/month.
- Tries a podcast.

Then, the cold outreach gets paused after no one replies. The HubSpot account sits dormant because you're too busy to hand over your contacts. And the podcast dies after seven episodes because it didn't bring ales. 

And you think: Marketing doesn’t work for us. Do I have to keep doing this myself? 🤨

Good news: You don't. 

Over the past 25 years, I’ve built five businesses, sold three, and advised on 75+ marketing projects.

Because of what I’ve seen, I believe marketing simply fails because nobody makes these 3 calls:
- Choosing one strategy every team member can explain and believe in.
- Sticking with that one strategy long enough to make it work.
- Holding everyone (including you, the founder) accountable with KPIs.

Making those 3 calls is what I call the CMO Gap.

→ Founders want to step out of marketing and need a CMO who makes decisions. But they can only afford a junior marketer who can’t do that.

Our program, CONTENT TURBO, closes that gap: In six months, we implement a repeatable and customised marketing system your team can run on their own, no agencies, no tool bloat, no false starts. 

Just a system that delivers at a fraction of a CMO's cost. 

It's the CMO I wanted in my five businesses but could't afford.


👉 If you’re ready to outgrow the marketing chaos, let’s connect.

✉️ Email me: chappuzeau@storylux.com
💬 WhatsApp me: +44 7375 428 095

Simon Chappuzeau

🟠 I work with leaders and HR Directors in mid-sized, growing organisations who need senior HR judgment without building a large, permanent HR setup.

Typically, these are global or international organisations navigating growth, complexity, or change, where the people agenda has become business-critical.

I’m the founder of LevelUp HR and a senior HR consultant and executive sparring partner with 20 years of international experience across investment banking, technology, digital businesses, and maritime.

I’ve worked in:
•  complex global organisations (Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, HP, Cognizant, Norges Bank Investment Management) 
• founder-led and owner-influenced businesses
• scale-ups and mid-sized organisations
• large HR functions and standalone CHRO / HR-of-one roles

That mix means I understand both enterprise-level expectations and the real constraints leaders and HR teams operate within.

When clients typically reach out.

(You might recognise some of this)

HR is busy and reactive, and you need a more strategic grip.

Growth, restructuring, M&A, or leadership change is putting pressure on culture and delivery.

Trust, engagement, or collaboration has taken a hit.

You’re hiring, but worried about capability, fit, and retention.

You need to reduce costs or restructure, and want to do it properly — without unnecessary risk.

You’ve stepped into a senior role and want an experienced, calm sparring partner.

How I help:

 I provide senior HR consulting and executive sparring to help leaders and HR Directors;

 → move from operational firefighting to strategic people leadership.

 → design organisations, culture, and HR priorities that actually deliver.

 → make difficult people decisions with clarity, integrity, and care.

 → strengthen leadership teams and execution in complex, regulated, or fast-moving environments.

My work is pragmatic, human, and commercially grounded.

Impact, excellence, compassion and collaboration guide how I work — especially when the work is complex.

If you’re looking for experienced HR leadership support without adding permanent senior headcount, I'm happy to talk.

📩 connect@level-upglobal.com

Rachel Wilson Rugelsjøen

82% of CEOs say culture is a priority.

Very few run businesses that behave like it.

Culture isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s your brand on the inside.

It’s how work gets done, how decisions are made, and how results are delivered.

🚩 If you’re seeing silos, disengagement, or stalled innovation, it’s your culture that is costing you.

Culture isn’t what you say — it’s what you encourage, accept, and tolerate.

High-performing teams don’t happen by accident. They thrive in cultures that promote:
✔️ Adaptability
✔️ Strategic thinking
✔️ Experimentation
✔️ Leaders with emotional intelligence
✔️ Constructive challenge to the status quo

These are the kind of teams that have me jumping out of bed in the morning, even when it’s freezing, dark, and the beautiful snow has already turned to slush!

Culture starts at the top. Leadership defines it, but everyone’s behaviour shapes it. 

Results really do follow from there.

Swipe through to see how culture impacts your bottom line and what to do to level up. 👇

Helping HR teams, leaders and business owners align people, culture and strategy to deliver results. Taking HR to the next level. Strategy | Culture | Performance

How To Strengthen Your Culture?

Strong cultures don’t disappear overnight.

They fade quietly, through small shifts no one means to make.

I’ve seen it happen in fast-growing companies, post-merger teams, even long-established giants.

One quarter, everything feels sharp and connected.

Decisions are fast. Conversations are honest and there’s a shared sense of purpose.

Then change arrives. Sometimes it’s a new strategy, leadership or org structure. 

Sometimes just a new project or set of targets.

It’s not that anything dramatic happens but it feels… different.

And slowly, the energy shifts.

People still perform, but it’s more mechanical.

The spark that made the team great dulls around the edges.

It doesn’t happen intentionally.

It’s what happens when focus drifts from how value is created to how it’s reported.

But I’ve worked with some of the best leaders who understand the signs and notice this early.

They protect what makes their culture distinct while scaling what drives performance.

That’s the work I love most, partnering with leadership teams to keep their teams and culture strong when everything else out there is shifting. 

2026 is shaping up fast! Culture design is finally moving up the agenda, and I’m excited by the work already lined up.

Have a Level Up weekend, wherever you are!

It’s “Blue Monday” apparently. 

So if today feels heavy for anyone: please know that you don’t need superpowers.

Leadership is still the same job; bringing out the best in others.

Happy Monday. 

Wishing you a Level Up week! 🧡

Many of the organisations I have worked in celebrate confident leaders. The kind who take decisive action, own the room, and inspire trust. 

Confidence signals clarity and competence, which people naturally seek in their leaders.

Yet real innovation and growth requires curiosity; asking questions, challenging assumptions, and admitting uncertainty. 

Curiosity demands humility, which can sometimes seem at odds with confidence.

So I often see a tension, a difficult balance to get right:

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀, "𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀." 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀, "𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘆?"

Leaders who overemphasize confidence risk appearing closed-minded, arrogant, or unapproachable. 

Those who lean too heavily into curiosity may seem indecisive or uncertain.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆

The best leaders (and most successful organisations) cultivate confident curiosity.

Confident curiosity means:

•	Asking bold questions while trusting yourself to handle the answers.
•	Owning your expertise but staying open to being challenged.
•	Admitting when you don't know, while committing to finding out.

It's the leader who says, "This is my perspective but what are we missing?" or "Here's my decision, and I'd love to hear your thoughts."

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀

If organizations want to build a true learning culture, curiosity needs to be viewed as a form of confidence.

Leaders need to model this by welcoming feedback, valuing dissent (some call it healthy-conflict) and making it safe to acknowledge uncertainty.

At the same time, they must show their teams that confidence isn't about certainty, it's about being grounded enough to explore, question, and evolve.

That’s how leaders, teams, and organisations - level up. 😉

Curious how confident curiosity could shift your leadership team?

Let’s talk. LevelUp HR Up HR helps leaders put this into practice every day.

Performance review season can feel a little cold.

Leaders prepare carefully.

They use the right templates.

They choose language that won’t create unnecessary friction.

And often, they leave the room having said very little that changes anything.

This isn’t because leaders don’t care.

It’s because they’re trying to be reasonable and fair

trying not to rock the boat.

But reasonable conversations don’t improve performance.

One of the mistakes we make is treating performance as a summary of the past, rather than a force that shapes what lies ahead. 

We ask questions like:
󠁯- Did you meet expectations?
󠁯- What went well/ badly?
󠁯- How would you rate this year?

They’re safe questions.
They’re also weak ones.

A far more useful question is this:

Did your work change the speed or direction of the team?

Performance isn’t about perfection.
It’s about momentum.

Some work creates clarity.
Other work creates friction.

Some decisions increase trust and pace.
Others quietly slow the system down.

Good performance conversations get to the heart of those patterns.

They also answer a question people are always thinking to themselves:

do you actually see me?

They don’t feel like judgement.
They feel like alignment.

Two people sitting down to look at the same reality and agreeing on what actually happened, not just individually, but together, across the whole system.

This is the part many leaders avoid, especially when they’re tired, too busy or under pressure.

It’s easier just to soften the message.

Preserve harmony.

Especially when uncertainty in the world outside the organisation seeps into daily work.

Easier to assume that regular check-in meetings will cover what isn’t being said.

They don’t.

The opposite of annual reviews isn’t continuous feedback.

No one wants feedback all the time.

It’s shared reality.

Its being seen.

Shared reality requires precision.

It requires context.

And it requires recognising that performance is never isolated, it always affects other people, and it happens within a context.

Leadership isn’t remembered for what was measured.

The metrics matter, but they’re not what stays with people.

What stays is how it felt to work in that system, that team.

How clear things were.
How decisions were made.
How you were spoken to.

Whether effort was recognised or simply taken for granted.

That’s why performance conversations matter.

But NOT as a process. As a moment that matters. As one of the few moments leaders have to shape reality rather than avoid it.

And at the end of the day, clarity is one of the most practical forms of leadership there is.

Photo: Me in Røros, where I am headed today. Packed and ready for a chilly -28 degrees on Sunday!

If you're a leader, chances are you want to be the kind of leader your team actually want to follow, the one they look forward to working with.

And most leaders genuinely are doing their very best.

It’s just that the job has never been tougher.

Expectations are higher.

The pace is faster.

The spotlight never turns off.

And many leaders didn’t get where they are by design.

They landed in the role by accident, by default, or because they were brilliant at something else.

That’s where the real challenge begins.

Because great leaders aren’t born. They’re shaped through experience, coaching, and a good few scars along the way.

And the cost of getting it wrong?

I’ve seen plenty of that up close. I’ve led teams large and small and learnt through my own mistakes and experience too. 

Which is why I know how much support matters.

Once strong teams can disengage.

Your best people can leave.

Opportunities can slip away.

Bad leadership doesn’t just frustrate people.

It’s expensive.

And the research is clear: fewer people, especially younger generations want leadership roles at all.

They’ve watched stress play out at home. They’ve seen burnout up close. And they’re opting out.

Which makes developing the leaders you already have even more critical.

In fact, the most effective leadership development happens while the work is in flight. Waiting for space between delivery is usually waiting forever.

But the good news is: when leadership gets the focus it deserves, the ripple effects are powerful.

Trust grows.

Decisions sharpen.

Collaboration becomes easier.

And performance follows.

👉 Swipe through the carousel to see how a leadership reset can shift a team in just 90 days.

Poor leadership costs you more than you think

I’ve coached leaders stepping into global roles.

Professionals shifting industries.

Teams rebuilding after setbacks.

And there is a common thread I see.

Confidence, not competence is what holds most people back.

I’ve seen brilliant people second-guess themselves out of promotions.

I’ve listened to countless candidates undersell themselves at interview.

I’ve watched skilled leaders hesitate, not because they lacked ability,

but because they didn’t trust themselves (yet).

We assume confident people are fearless.

They’re not.

They’ve just learned how to work with that fear.

Confidence isn’t a personality trait.

It’s a practice.

It’s built through small choices, when you decide to back yourself, even with some doubt.

Not flashy or arrogant. Just steady.

It’s the quiet kind of trust that says, “I can do this… or I’ll figure it out along the way.”

And that change of perspective makes all the difference.

💡 The carousel breaks down how to build real confidence, step by step. No fluff but what works in practice.

♻️ Someone in your network needs this today. Please feel free to share!

How to build real confidence?

Your best work rarely happens alone.

It happens when your strengths meet someone else’s.

In every organization I’ve worked with, “Teamwork” has been a core value.

It’s recognised as essential to achieving results because very few people deliver exceptional outcomes entirely in isolation.

And yet… real collaboration still eludes many teams.

Not because people don’t care 

but because it requires intention, clarity, and trust.

Org charts, incentives, time zones, tools 

these structural realities shape how we work.

And sometimes, they get in the way.

Work is becoming more interdependent and more distributed at the same time which means outcomes increasingly depend on how well we coordinate across boundaries we don’t control.

So here’s a practical starting point. It’s my collaboration code for how real teams succeed together.

7 principles that help teams build trust, move faster, and achieve better results:

1. Default to transparency 
If you know something that could help others , share it.

2. Assume positive intent
Most people aren’t blocking progress. They’re just busy.

3. Invite others in early
Cross-functional work shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should happen from day one.

4. Get curious, not territorial
Ask: “How can we solve this together?” instead of “Who owns this?”

5. Celebrate collective wins
Recognition should reflect how the work actually got done together.

6. Remove invisible barriers
Time zones, titles, tools and find ways to close the gap.

7. Model it at the top
If leaders don’t collaborate, teams won’t either.

Collaboration isn’t a soft skill.

It’s a system of working together that taps into collective talent. 

It’s where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

Which one does your team need most right now — 1–7? Share the number below 👇

An infographic titled How Real Teams Collaborate listing seven principles: default to transparency, assume positive intent, invite others in early, get curious, celebrate collective wins, remove invisible barriers, and model it at the top. Each point includes a short explanation and an orange icon to encourage better leadership and cross-functional teamwork.

Last week I wrote about why organisations operating in Norway are increasingly tested on how people-related issues are handled, not just on outcomes.

This carousel highlights where that scrutiny is now playing out in practice in 2026, and where many organisations are exposed without realising it.

This isn’t about new law.

It’s about:

1. Higher expectations of leadership practice.

2. Clearer scrutiny of process and documentation.

3. Less tolerance for informal handling when issues are challenged.

→ Pay transparency.
→ Probation and performance.
→ Psychosocial work environment.
→ Leadership behaviour.
→ Systems and traceability.

Individually, none of this is new.

Taken together, it changes the standard organisations are held to.

In employment law, cases are rarely lost because an outcome was unreasonable but because the process couldn’t be defended.

How work is organised and led matters as much as the decisions you make.

************************

👉At LevelUp HR, we help organisations operating in Norway and internationally —translate employment law, leadership expectations and regulatory requirements into how work is actually organised and led.

Our work sits at the intersection of employment law, leadership capability and culture architecture. We support leaders and HR teams to build people practices that are fair, proportionate and defensible, while creating the conditions for people and organisations to thrive in practice, not just comply on paper.

Norway Employment Law 2026 

We’re investing heavily in AI tools.

But I’m not convinced we’re investing enough in the humans using them.

If humans now need to be very good at being human because AI will expose poor leadership, then technology alone won’t get us there.

AI is accelerating everything.

Decisions. Pace. Pressure. Expectations.

And yet, many leaders are being asked to operate in more complexity than ever with less support for the human side of the role.

Navigating ambiguity.

Working through disagreement.

Leading tired teams through constant change.

That doesn’t come from tools.

It comes from emotional intelligence, judgement, and relational skill.

It comes from leadership development that’s actually relevant.

From high-performance team work.

From coaching.

From bespoke learning that meets people where they are.

Not tick-box programs.

Not generic sheep-dip training from the big brand logo’s.

As Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff said recently, AI should elevate humanity, not diminish it.

But that only happens if organisations understand AND invest in the human capability required to use AI well.

Especially at the layer of management that’s quietly carrying the most strain right now.

If we want AI to elevate humanity, we have to elevate our leaders first.

AI will expose how you lead

Kicking off Saturday Survey 2026!

Culture is often talked about as a priority but pressure has a way of revealing what really matters.

Very curious what your experience is here. 👇🏻

When results are under pressure, what usually wins?

taplio

The Battle

Simon Chappuzeau

Rachel Wilson Rugelsjøen

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taplio

The Battle

Simon Chappuzeau

Rachel Wilson Rugelsjøen

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);}Rachel Wilson Rugelsjøen's LinkedIn Performance

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