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By Rose Spaziani
CEO Ann M. Charles tapped a high-demand market when she founded her company BRANDfog, which offers social media branding and corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies for C-suite executives. As a veteran marketing executive, she believes thought leadership is key to developing the right CSR strategies to enhance brands, helping companies attract top talent and increasing business opportunities. On April 28-29, 2011, her company will bring together CEOs from across the US for the first Great Leaders Conference, an event that honors top CEOs as great leaders in social responsibility. Ann also is the CSR Expert Blogger for FastCompany.com.
BRANDfog launched in 2009 after a string of bank failures led to a recession. What was it like to launch a business during such uncertain economic times?
There was skepticism, but on the flip side, the Web and social media make starting a small business so much easier than it was even 3 years ago. You can source great talent for low cost through the Web, especially international talent, and interview via Skype video. From an operational standpoint, I was able to start the business for a relatively small cost. The demand came because social media crashed through the doors of the C-suite so fast, that executives were grappling with how to control their media image online. This was changing the culture of leading a company. For these reasons, there was a built-in demand because CEOs were looking to manage their online presence and executive reputation.
There was skepticism, but on the flip side, the Web and social media make starting a small business so much easier than it was even 3 years ago. You can source great talent for low cost through the Web, especially international talent, and interview via Skype video. From an operational standpoint, I was able to start the business for a relatively small cost. The demand came because social media crashed through the doors of the C-suite so fast, that executives were grappling with how to control their media image online. This was changing the culture of leading a company. For these reasons, there was a built-in demand because CEOs were looking to manage their online presence and executive reputation.
Your firm helps CEOs engage their company’s audience through social media. How do you, as a busy CEO, find the time to tweet and blog? How do you manage the 24/7 demands of social media?
I organize content topics by week, month, quarter and half. We’re a small company, so I do all of the ghost writing and blogging for our clients. For example, for the quarter January to March, I will develop theme topics in advance so that the broad content ideas are established. Then, whenever a relevant news article sparks an idea on the topic, I jot down notes and links to articles. That’s very helpful later on. When on deadline, there’s nothing worse than starting with a blank sheet of paper.
I organize content topics by week, month, quarter and half. We’re a small company, so I do all of the ghost writing and blogging for our clients. For example, for the quarter January to March, I will develop theme topics in advance so that the broad content ideas are established. Then, whenever a relevant news article sparks an idea on the topic, I jot down notes and links to articles. That’s very helpful later on. When on deadline, there’s nothing worse than starting with a blank sheet of paper.
Female CEOs represent a small fraction of the number of women in the overall workforce. What advice can you offer women in media industries for sharpening their business acumen?
The inability of women to reach the top in business is a really big issue that this country hasn’t yet addressed. Periodically we notice that only 2.8% of the Fortune 1000 companies are led by female CEOs, and people shake their heads. Then just as quickly the subject gets dropped. I wrote about this in my Fast Company Article, When Women Rule the C-Suite. I think when you compare CEOs with new company founders, you will see a higher number of women starting their own businesses. I think there’s definitely frustration about this. I still see a lot of sharp women executives rise to the position of CMO — that’s a great position by the way — but why are all these women relegated only to the CMO function? I would like to see some change in the business culture in this area. My advice to women is to start your own company if you want to be the boss. Don’t wait for big business to come around; society will catch up to us eventually.
The inability of women to reach the top in business is a really big issue that this country hasn’t yet addressed. Periodically we notice that only 2.8% of the Fortune 1000 companies are led by female CEOs, and people shake their heads. Then just as quickly the subject gets dropped. I wrote about this in my Fast Company Article, When Women Rule the C-Suite. I think when you compare CEOs with new company founders, you will see a higher number of women starting their own businesses. I think there’s definitely frustration about this. I still see a lot of sharp women executives rise to the position of CMO — that’s a great position by the way — but why are all these women relegated only to the CMO function? I would like to see some change in the business culture in this area. My advice to women is to start your own company if you want to be the boss. Don’t wait for big business to come around; society will catch up to us eventually.
Besides helping other companies to implement CSR strategies, how else does BRANDfog, as a company, embrace CSR in its day-to-day activities? Do you have any internal/external CSR strategies on your agenda?
We’ve created a whole conference around it. I call it the Great Leaders Conference because I believe it’s about the culture of leadership changing to integrate CSR directly into a company’s DNA. It becomes part of your HR strategy, talent management strategy, carbon footprint planning — but it doesn’t stop there. We’re going to actually put a spotlight on CEOs who are doing a great job of running their companies and quietly doing the right thing. The proceeds from the conference go to nonprofits. This shows how we’re walking the talk.
We’ve created a whole conference around it. I call it the Great Leaders Conference because I believe it’s about the culture of leadership changing to integrate CSR directly into a company’s DNA. It becomes part of your HR strategy, talent management strategy, carbon footprint planning — but it doesn’t stop there. We’re going to actually put a spotlight on CEOs who are doing a great job of running their companies and quietly doing the right thing. The proceeds from the conference go to nonprofits. This shows how we’re walking the talk.
What have you learned in planning the first Great Leaders Conference?
We ended up with so much content and so many CEOs who wanted to speak that we couldn’t squeeze it all into one day and didn’t want to shortchange the speakers. We also engaged with NYU, who is looking to integrate the concept of CSR into curriculum for students, who are of course our future leaders. I loved this idea. So we moved the conference to April 28-29, 2011 and expanded to 2 days. We also don’t want to be limited to preaching to the converted on CSR. We’re adding a sustainable capitalism panel, and we’re going to bring in heavyweights in the financial industry to speak. We want to bring in CEOs from industries that may or may not believe this is the future of business. Socially Responsible Investments (SRIs) are on the rise, and in many cases performing better than traditional investments. This is a story that needs to be told broadly. You no longer have the false choice of making a lot of money or doing the right thing in business. CSR provides dividends that you can take to the bank.
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