Iconify Consulting Group (ICG)

• LinkedIn Personal Branding • Strategic Market Positioning • Brand Consulting

Co-founder & CEO

Jaipuria Institute of Management

Guest Faculty

Gwalior Smart City Incubation Centre - GIncube

Startup Mentor

Narayana Business School

Guest Speaker

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

XIM University

Careerflow

Social Media Marketer

K J Somaiya Institute of Management

National Institute of Technology , Patna

VICE Media

Social Media Marketing Project

As Co-founder & CEO of Iconify Consulting Group and a PhD scholar in personal branding, I help companies and leaders use LinkedIn as a strategic channel.

My work sits at the intersection of Corporate and employer branding, GTM (through LinkedIn) and personal branding. I’ve partnered with 270+ leaders across Fortune 500, Nasdaq, Inc. 5000, Silicon Valley, YC and Wall Street; recognized as an award-winning LinkedIn creator and ranked among top voices in LinkedIn personal branding. 
I’ve delivered executive sessions at top B schools, drawing on 14,000+ mentees and five years operating LinkedIn as an enterprise channel. 

Open to consulting and advisory.

Email: mishka.rana@iconifyconsultinggroup.com

Entrepreneurship is a luxury. It’s all about:
Freedom to work when you want.
Vacations whenever you feel like it.
No boss to report to.
Making your own rules.
Building something that’s yours.
Getting paid for your passion.
Designing your dream life.

And honestly, that’s true

But it also means: 

- Working when everyone else is sleeping.

- Taking calls on vacations you already paid for.

- Being your own boss and your own accountant, intern, marketer, and janitor.

- Writing invoices on Sundays and brainstorming at midnight.

- Getting rejected ten times before one “yes.”

- Spending more time fixing problems than celebrating wins.

- Carrying the weight of every decision, every mistake, every month-end.

- Running payroll before your morning chai.
And realizing your “day off” doesn’t really exist. 


It gives freedom but it also gives full-time responsibility. You trade 9–5 for 24/7, and somehow… still love it.

Because at the end of the day, it’s yours.
All the chaos, all the creation — yours. 😊


(And yes, I’m probably typing this while on “vacation.” lol.) 


#entrepreneurship #freedom #founder

MISHKA RANA

CEO @ICG | LinkedIn Thought Leadership + Employer Branding for Enterprises & C-Suites | B2B LinkedIn Marketing | Trusted by Fortune 500, Nasdaq, Silicon Valley & YC Leaders

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This 1-hour rule changed my mornings:

I used to wake up and check my phone first thing every morning. 
One quick scroll turned into 15 minutes of emails, messages, and “urgent” things that, in hindsight, never really were.

By the time I made coffee, my mind was already 10 steps into the day: replying, planning, overthinking.

It felt “productive” at the time. But honestly, it wasn’t.
It was like letting everyone else’s agenda run my day before mine even began.

A few weeks ago, I decided to stop doing that.

No productivity app.
No big habit challenge.

Just one small rule: not touching my phone for the first hour after waking up.

At first, it felt impossible. That itch to check notifications was real. But once I got through the first few days, it became something else entirely quiet. 

Calm. 
Clarity I didn’t even realize I’d been missing.

Now that first hour has become my favourite part of the day.

I make my coffee and tbh Philips LatteGo has spoiled me (one button and it’s perfect every single time)

I let the sunlight in and think about how I want the day to feel instead of what I have to do.

Some mornings I strategize, sometimes I just sit and breathe but every single time, I start grounded instead of anxious.

And here’s the interesting part: my productivity actually went up.
Because when you start your day by checking your phone, you start with other people’s noise.
But when you start with yourself, you lead from clarity, not chaos.

Try it tomorrow: NO phone for one hour.

Just you, your thoughts and that first cup that reminds you that mornings don’t have to feel like emergencies! 

#Productivity #MorningRituals

The New York Times just confirmed what I've been telling my corporate clients for years: Employees are the new influencers.

Here's the reality check your C-suite needs:
While you're splurging budgets on celebrity endorsements and macro-influencers, your most authentic brand ambassadors are sitting in cubicles next to you. 

The NYT highlighted companies from Delta to LEGO putting employees front and center, because audiences are craving authenticity over aspiration.

Trust is the new currency. Period. Here's what smart companies are realizing:

1. Authenticity Beats Algorithm: 63% of 18-34 year olds trust what influencers say about brands more than the brands themselves and your employees ARE influencers in their networks

2. Cost-Effective Reach: An employee advocacy program costs 1/10 of paid advertising (or less)

3. Talent Magnetism: Brands with successful employee advocacy programs are 58% likelier to attract and 20% more likely to retain talent

4. Revenue Impact: On average, an employee advocacy program involving 1,000 active participants can generate $1,900,000 in advertising value

86% of US marketers are expected to use influencer marketing in 2025, and the smart money is betting on the influencers already on your payroll.

The companies that will dominate in 2025 understand this:

Your employees have collective networks of millions Their voices carry more weight than your corporate messaging.

How to Turn Your Team into Your Brand Army: 

1. Start with Culture: Employee advocacy happens because of positive workplace engagement. Fix your internal brand first.

2. Provide Content & Training: Don't leave them guessing. Give them shareable content and social media guidelines.

3. Measure & Amplify: 58.8% of employees in formal programs spend 5+ hours weekly on business-related social activities. Track what works and scale it.

4. Incentivize Participation: Offering employee influencers a bonus, pay bump, extra PTO or other perks makes others more likely to volunteer.

While your competitors are still throwing money at influencers who don't give a damn about your brand values, you could be building an army of authentic advocates who live and breathe your company culture daily.

The question isn't whether employee advocacy works, the data proves it does. 

The question is: Are you brave enough to trust your people with your brand?
Because if you're not, your competition will be.

At Iconify Consulting Group (ICG), we've helped Fortune 500 companies build employee advocacy programs that drive real ROI! And it works wonders :)

LinkedIn | Linkedin News | LinkedIn News India 

 
#EmployeeAdvocacy #PersonalBranding #CorporateBranding #BrandStrategy #B2BMarketing #BrandBuilding

Sometimes a book reminds you why experience still matters more than theory.

Just finished reading is "From Boardroom To Startup - What Amazon Taught Me About Scale, Allianz About Stability - And Why I Left Both." written by someone I deeply admire, Kai Michael Czeschlik and it’s easily one of the most grounded leadership reads I’ve come across this year.

Kai has led large-scale operations at Amazon, Allianz, Telefónica, and TUI and now runs a fully remote CX company. What struck me most was how honestly he contrasts the “rules of leading” in corporates versus startups. Not as clichés, but through lived experience, the kind that only comes from leading thousands of people and building something from scratch. He writes about how in corporates, leadership is about navigation steering through systems, aligning silos, optimizing complexity.

In startups, it’s about propulsion creating momentum from uncertainty, leading without buffers, and making decisions with imperfect data.

Both require discipline. Both demand humility. But they test very different muscles.

The way he ties customer experience (CX) to leadership DNA is especially sharp. Most leaders still see CX as a function, Kai frames it as a reflection of how you lead from the inside out.

It’s the kind of book you don’t rush through you pause, underline, and think: Have I been leading or just managing survival?

Highly recommend for anyone who’s ever led teams across two worlds: scale and chaos, process and passion.

#bookrecommendation #leadership #startups #careerdevelopment

Years!!! That’s how long India waited for this moment 🏆🇮🇳

Half a century of near wins, heartbreaks, and quiet hope until the Indian women’s cricket team lifted that trophy.

And the only thing that kept them going that long wasn’t luck. It was trust.
In the game. 
In each other. 
In every drop of effort. 💙

Kinley says it right, Trust in Every Drop!

#kinley #cricket #icc #womensworldcup #ad

Now this is smart marketing! 👀 Spotted a Swiggy bag that also carried the Biryani by Kilo logo and it instantly stood out.

Simple idea, massive visibility.

It’s not often two brands share the same space, but when they do it right, it turns into a moving brand story that reaches consumers all day, everywhere.

Love how this brings creativity out of the screen and onto the street.

Props to Swiggy and Biryani By Kilo for pulling this off 👏

#marketing

It all comes down to how you treat people. Humility has become the most overused aesthetic in leadership and yet the most under-practiced one.

It’s the new social currency. Everyone wants to look grounded. Few actually are.

I met someone recently whose public image and actual behavior existed on opposite ends of the spectrum. It wasn’t shocking, just a reminder of how often perception scales faster than integrity.

That’s the paradox of modern personal branding. 

Most people treat it like image design: what you say, how you show up, how often you post. 

But the strongest personal brands are not built on what’s visible; they’re built on consistency.

Consistency between how you show up online and how you behave when there’s no one watching.

Credibility doesn’t live in your content. It lives in repetition of truth, in how predictably people experience you across contexts, power dynamics, and rooms.

In 2025, algorithms might shape visibility. But only behavior sustains it.

The way you treat people is your brand: long before your title, content, or credentials.

Reputation travels faster than algorithms ever can.


#leadership #thoughtleader #humility #socialmedia

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