Sunny Bonnell

Founder & CEO, Motto® • Top Global Brand & Visionary Leadership Expert • Bestselling Author, Rare Breed • Co-Founder, VisionCamp® • GDUSA Top People to Watch • Top 30 GlobalGurus in Brand • High-Octane Keynote Speaker

Sunny Bonnell is the co-founder and CEO of Motto®, a strategy and innovation firm, and Thinkers50 Radar, which, in partnership with Deloitte, awards the brightest minds in the world. 

Named a ‘Visionary Brand Icon’ by SWAGGER, she is a Top 30 Global Gurus in Brand, GDUSA's Top 25 People to Watch, and a WEBBY Award winner. The WEBBY Awards described Sunny as “Setting the standard for innovation and creativity.”

Sunny works with executive leadership teams to set visions, create big ideas, and inspire their culture to take action on that vision. 

Clients include:

Minnesota Vikings
Virgin
Google
Microsoft
Klaviyo
NFL
Hershey’s
Legendary Digital
Disney
Twentieth Century Fox
Choice Hotels
NCM
Andela
Goodnotes

Sunny is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker for organizations like MasterCard, Microsoft, Dale Carnegie, Fast Company Innovation Festival, Inc., and Inspiring Workplaces. 

She's been featured in every major publication, including Forbes, Entrepreneur, and The Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on Closing Bell on the NY Stock Exchange, The Breakfast Club, and Yahoo Finance. She writes a popular and provocative leadership column for Fast Company with her Co-founder and partner in crime, Ashleigh Hansberger.

Sunny and Ashleigh are the authors of Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different (Harper Collins, 2019) which flips the script on business as usual and carves a path for unconventional success.

“The top 5 career books of all time.” — New York Post
"Brazen and a ruckus to make things better.” — Seth Godin
“An entire windstorm of original thinking.” — USA Today

Sunny's work is focused on dismantling status-quo practices and inspiring others to do big things.

Founder, speaker, author, vision leader.

👉 wearemotto.com
👉 sunnybonnell.com

Co-Founder & CEO

Motto® is a vision-partner and strategic brand transformation company. We believe in the power of big ideas to clarify vision, rally people, and inspire action.

We guide CEOs, founders, and teams through times of growth and transition to unlock their Idea Worth Rallying Around®— the signature idea that sits at the heart of the business and makes it famous.

Internally: Our work drives the culture strategy for how you do things—by aligning leadership around vision and purpose, codifying values, creating plans to evolve, inspiring employees with a strategic narrative, and weaving brand-building behaviors and mindsets into your company DNA.

Externally: Our work drives the brand strategy for how you're positioned—by creating competitive difference, establishing key narratives, casting creative direction, and activating the brand across touchpoints.

Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with the brightest minds to solve their toughest strategic challenges. Leaders seek us out to clearly communicate what their company is about. Our unique advisory approach helps your brand and culture work together so your company thrives.

CLIENTS
Virgin
Google
Microsoft
Hershey
Andela
Goodnotes
Earnest
ServiceTitan
Brooklyn Brewery
Disney
Ninjas in Pyjamas

Founders. CEOs. Brand leaders. Creatives. 👋 How do you stay relevant when speed is messy, and sameness is a prompt away? 

Motto® Future of Brand Report 2026 is now LIVE.

And yes, it’s free.

We built it for leaders navigating the most accelerated era in modern business.

→ AI is turning output into a commodity. 
→ Culture is shifting faster than playbooks can keep up. 
→ Differentiation is harder to hold onto.
→ The brands that win will build meaning that scales and alignment that sticks.

Here’s what you’ll get:

→ Fieldnotes: sharp signals across tech, design, culture, and leadership
→ Forces: the big shifts reshaping how companies create value
→ Questions: prompts to pressure-test strategy and spark better decisions

This is a decision tool to help you think, build, and lead in the year ahead. 

Read it, share it, debate it.

Just don’t ignore it.

If you want to win at business and brand in 2026...

Like this post and drop FUTURE OF BRAND in the comments, and I’ll send it your way.

#brand

Motto®

Motto® is a leading brand strategy and design consultancy for positioning, scaling, and reinventing companies in the tech and innovation space.

We guide founders, CEOs, and executive teams through high-impact rebrands at pivotal inflection points to set vision, align leadership around strategy, and build brands to lead the future. 

We're best known for creating Ideas Worth Rallying Around®—the signature idea that sits at the heart of a business and makes it famous.

What we do: Brand strategy & positioning, naming, messaging, visual identity systems, motion identity.

Co-Founder & COO

Thinkers50

The Thinkers50 Radar identifies a cohort of 30 up-and-coming thinkers whose ideas are most likely to make an important impact and shape the future.

"The Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024 is an exciting group of up-and-coming management thinkers who have attracted our attention and, we believe, will make an impact with their ideas, their research, and their commitment to making the world a better place," says Thinkers50 Co-founder, Stuart Crainer.

Thinkers50 is the world’s most reliable resource for identifying, ranking, and sharing the leading management ideas of our age. Our ambition is to provide innovative access to ideas with the power to make the world a better place.

That mission is based on three core beliefs:
Ideas have the power to change the world.
Management is essential to human affairs.
New thinking can create a better future.

Thinkers50 Radar 2024 Member — Top 30 Thinkers in the World to Watch

VisionCamp®

Co-Founder

HarperCollins Publishers

In Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different, Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger outline the seven virtues that define unconventional talent. And we show you how to recognize and channel them to achieve the greatest impact. It’s a handbook that’s as practical as it is inspiring. It will help you to exploit your explosive qualities while avoiding their destructive side. In short, it’s a book about affirming your unique identity as an asset, not deficit—and succeeding by going all in on who you are, instead of changing yourself to fit in.

Author, Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different

Chief

Chief is a private network built to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. Chief is the only organization specifically designed for senior women leaders to strengthen their leadership journey, cross-pollinate ideas across industries, and effect change from the top-down.

Chief Member

Ashleigh Hansberger is a leading voice on the business of brand. A visionary agency founder, strategy director, and best-selling author, she is the Co-Founder and COO of Motto®, a leading brand strategy and innovation firm specializing in positioning, scaling, and reinventing companies in the tech and innovation space. She is also the Co-Founder of VisionCamp®, a visionary leadership experience for exec teams to crystallize their vision and drive it forward with purpose. 

As the strategic force behind Motto®, Ashleigh shapes strategy, leads day-to-day operations, integrates key business functions, and drives culture, clarity, and communication throughout to guide Motto® through its next era of growth as it enters its 20th year. She is also a trusted advisor and thought partner to Motto's $100M+ clients, helping executive teams navigate growth, change, and innovation.

Under Ashleigh's co-leadership, Motto's award-winning culture has been featured as a Most Loved Workplace®, fueled by an ambitious tight-knit team with a shared vision and high-output work ethic.  

Recognized globally, Ashleigh has earned spots on Thinkers50 2024 Radar, Top 30 Global Gurus, Inc. 30 Under 30, and The Webby Awards. 

Clients include: Google, Microsoft, Hershey's, Virgin Voyages, Colliers, Andela, Klayvio, CloudBees, Impel, Ninjas in Pyjamas, 20th Century Fox, Hello Alice, USA Today, Earnest, HoMedics, Choice Hotels, NFL, Artnet, Goodnotes, and hundreds more. 

Ashleigh's keynotes and workshops have been delivered to Fast Company Innovation Festival, Campaign, Inc, Small Giants, the National Student Show, and Dale Carnegie to name a few.

She's been featured in every major publication, including Forbes, Entrepreneur, and The Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on Closing Bell on the NY Stock Exchange, The Breakfast Club, and Yahoo Finance. She writes a popular and provocative leadership column for Fast Company with her Co-founder and partner in crime, Sunny Bonnell.

Ashleigh and Sunny are the authors of Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different (Harper Collins, 2019) which flips the script on business as usual and carves a path for unconventional success. The New York Post declared Rare Breed "one of the top 5 career books of all time." Seth Godin described it as "brazen" and "a ruckus to make things better." USA Today called it "an entire windstorm of original thinking."

They are currently writing their second book.

To work with Motto®, reach out: https://wearemotto.com/contact/

Ashleigh Hansberger

AI raised the floor for everyone. Differentiation has never been harder. 

Across technology, culture, and organizational behavior, the signals for 2026 suggest a profound reset in how brands earn trust and create impact. 

Are you ready? 

New pressures. New ways brands will win in 2026.

In just a few days, Motto®publishes our 2026 Future of Brand Report, mapping the five forces that will shape how companies think, build, and compete in the year ahead. 

Want it? 

Motto’s Future of Brand Report drops Dec 16.

Twenty years branding the world’s most innovative companies has made one thing clear: 

The future doesn’t arrive all at once.

It shows up as pressure. As shifting behavior.

As decisions leaders need to make for relevancy.

Over the past year, we guided leadership teams through: 

- Repositioning
- Category definition
- Strategy/culture alignment
- Company brand transformation
- Vision refinement 

Those experiences gave us a front-row view into the pressures, ambitions, and decision-making frameworks shaping the next chapter of brand.

The insights in Motto’s Future of Brand Report 2026 come from leading brands through the most accelerated era in modern business. 

Get it in 3 days.

How do you stay relevant when speed is messy, and sameness is a prompt away? 

Motto®’s Future of Brand Report 2026 is live.

And yes, it’s free.

We built it for leaders navigating the most accelerated era in modern business.

→ AI is turning output into a commodity. 
→ Culture is shifting faster than playbooks can keep up. 
→ Differentiation is harder to hold onto.
→ The brands that win will build meaning that scales and alignment that sticks.

Here’s what you’ll get:

→ Fieldnotes: sharp signals across tech, design, culture, and leadership
→ Forces: the big shifts reshaping how companies create value
→ Questions: prompts to pressure-test strategy and spark better decisions

This is a decision tool to help you think, build, and lead in the year ahead. 

Read it, share it, debate it.

Just don’t ignore it.

Download Future of Brand Report 2026
→ https://lnkd.in/emeG4v-F

If these insights raise opportunities you want to explore, we welcome a conversation.

Our doors are open to unpack your business needs and brand aspirations.

Do big things

Behind every brand breakthrough is a shift leaders saw early.

From AI’s impact on decision-making to new patterns in consumer trust, the landscape for 2026 is already taking shape. 

Every company feels the acceleration. 

Culture is shifting. 

Differentiation is disappearing. 

Motto's first-ever Future of Brand Report 2026 distills the tensions behind the noise and reveals where competitive advantage is actually emerging. 

It's going to be EPIC. 

Curious? 

Drops Dec 16.

The systems shaping brands are becoming more complex. Meaning becomes harder to earn. 

AI is raising the baseline, coherence is becoming a leadership requirement, and brand is shifting from expression to system. 

Tomorrow, Motto® releases our 2026 Future of Brand Report.

It’s what we’ve learned at the front lines of transformation and a synthesis of the forces reshaping technology, culture, and leadership — and what they mean for brands navigating accelerated change.

Are you as excited as we are?

There is a particular kind of pride that only founders know.

It comes from the moment you realize the culture you've worked so hard to shape has truly taken hold, slipped out of your hands, and into the care of the people around you.

Everything inside a company begins at the top.

Founders set the tone, draw the lines, and name what matters. That work is essential. But it is also incomplete.

Because real culture does not stay centralized.

At some point, something more powerful takes over. 

The team starts to own and carry the culture forward on its own. 

They defend it when no one is watching. 

They practice it in small, unglamorous moments. 

They express it in ways leadership could never design, and frankly, should not try to.

Today was our 2025 Cheers to the Year at Motto.

Grant Oorloff MC'd the whole thing with his signature pizzazz.

Sunny Bonnell reflected on the year with gratitude and pride. 

Nicole Souza revisited the moments that shaped us, sharing a year’s worth of memories.

Sam Horbury announced our Annual Kudos Champion (awarded to the teammate who received the most kudos by consistently living our core values and earned $5,500 as a result)

And Tom van Cleak surprised the room with the M’oscars, an awards show that had everyone laughing until our cheeks hurt.

What stood out most was not the celebration itself, but what it revealed.

The Motto® team shows up for each other with great intention.

We have always believed that a small group of exceptionally talented people can do meaningful, outsized work together.

This year proved that belief again.

Culture, at its best, is not enforced. 

It cannot be mandated, scaled through memos, or preserved through process alone. 

It is earned through trust, modeled through behavior, and sustained by people who care enough to protect it.

And when it is nurtured by everyone, it becomes the most durable advantage a company can have.

My personal lesson this year is simple and humbling.

Your job as a founder is not to control culture. 

It is to build it well enough, and live it clearly enough, that others feel proud to carry it forward.

🏴

taplio

The Battle

Sunny Bonnell

Ashleigh Hansberger

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreSunny Bonnell's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAshleigh Hansberger's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Sunny Bonnell

Ashleigh Hansberger

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);}Sunny Bonnell's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAshleigh Hansberger's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreSunny Bonnell's LinkedIn Performance