How to design an authentic and powerful personal brand

A personal brand is a bridge between you and your audience. Its most fundamental job is to establish a relationship that creates value for both sides. It is a relationship built on trust, relevance, and coherence. And this immediately raises a central challenge: if trust is the currency, you must show enough of yourself for others to recognise who you are, what you stand for, and why you are worth listening to. In other words, you must show an authentic version of yourself.

I have noticed that one of the first concerns that comes up in interviews or in conversations with leaders is the misconception that curating your personal brand inevitably leads to inauthenticity. That is wrong. Curating a personal brand means making conscious choices about how you show up so that what people perceive is aligned with who you truly are. It is an act of clarity and intention.

This brings us to a practical difficulty. How can you engineer an authentic profile that also sells? And how can you build a profile that stays coherent while adapting to an ever-changing context?

My proposal is simple and practical: avoid creating an abstract portrait of yourself. Instead, create principles that guide the three areas in which a personal brand behaves: how you relate, how you speak, and how you act. When your principles are clear, your behaviour becomes predictable, consistent, and recognisable. That is what creates authenticity over time.

To articulate these principles, you need structure. That is why I use the Brand Authenticity Canvas, which helps you understand yourself, your market, and your public from three different vantage points: the look within, the look without, and how you are seen.

The look within

How I see myself

This is the internal lens. It forces you to stop and articulate the fundamentals.

Who I am

My heritage, my key milestones, and the signature stories that shaped my professional identity. These elements give my brand depth and legitimacy.

What I stand for

My purpose, my values, and the principles that orient my decisions. This is the moral and strategic centre of gravity that gives coherence in moments of ambiguity.

What I call success

My mission and my strategic goals. Success needs a definition to become actionable. If I do not define it, others will define it for me.

The look within answers a simple but essential question: what must remain stable in me, regardless of the context?

The look without

How I see the market

Authenticity emerges when my identity intersects with the needs and expectations of the world around me.

How I make money

My business model and my strategies. Clarifying how I create value gives my authenticity a solid foundation.

Whom I serve

My audience. Authenticity becomes relevant when it meets the needs, tensions, and aspirations of real people.

How I win

My competitive advantages, my capabilities, and my value proposition. These define the reasons why my audience chooses me.

The look without answers the question: what must evolve because the world evolves?

How I am seen

The external lens

This is the reality check. Independently of my intentions, my brand takes shape in the eyes of others.

What I am praised for

Brand perception acts as a mirror. It reveals the strengths people recognise in me, the qualities they attribute to my work, and the expectations they associate with my contribution.

This part closes the loop: it shows whether my intentions translate into perception, and exposes gaps between how I see myself and how others see me.

From insight to action

My authentic profile principles

Once I have explored the three looks, I can synthesise everything into guiding principles. These principles shape the way my personal brand behaves in three domains.

How I relate

My relationship model. It defines the emotional and psychological contract I want with my audience. The stability of this relational posture becomes one of the strongest signals of authenticity.

How I speak

My communication principles. They govern tone, rhythm, openness, narrative structure, and the topics I address. People trust voices that remain coherent over time.

How I act

My behavioural principles. These translate my values into conduct: how I make decisions, how I handle opportunities, and how I show up in moments that matter.

When these principles are clear, my audience recognises me easily. They understand my logic and trust my voice. And that trust becomes the foundation on which influence grows.

Authenticity then becomes the natural result of a well-designed identity.