Episode 1: Building an Aligned Personal Brand for Business with Fleur Madden, CEO, Freelancing Gems

3 Mar

Welcome to episode #1 of The Thought Leader Show, hosted by Bec Sands and Andrés López-Varela. This episode is available on Spotify, Stitcher and Apple Podcasts, and if you enjoy it, we would love it if you could please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your friends.

In today’s podcast episode, we interview Fleur Madden, the CEO of women’s job site Freelancing Gems, which matches women to their next meaningful role. Fleur is passionate about the future of work for women, diversity, inclusion and women being paid what they are worth. She has spent her whole career creating opportunities for women. She is an award-winning businesswoman, experienced CEO/Founder, recognised industry expert and women in business speaker with 19 years of experience running her own businesses.

Show Notes

1:00 An intro to the podcast, what we’re planning to cover, and what’s in it for you, the listener!

4:00 About Fleur Madden, our interviewee and a snapshot of her business background

5:39 Fleur joins the podcast and discusses her mission with Freelancing Gems

6:06 How Fleur describes her personal brand, including how she rebranded in between businesses, and what she stands for – including how she “talks the talk and walks the walk” on women’s issues

8:50 Many women shy away from building a personal brand, but here’s why your personal brand is SO important

11:00 How presenting in alignment with your brand is important and how Fleur uniquely does this

12:40 Some of the big, deliberate steps Fleur has taken to build her personal brand, and how a key part of her personal brand as a leader is considering how her brand makes people feel

15:00 How Fleur’s personal brand is authentic and exactly who she is, and how she carries her values across in her personal brand no matter what business she is in

16:30 Fleur describes how a brand needs to be across every touchpoint – in social media, events, branding in person and more

19:00 How Fleur attributes visibility to her success and how your personal brand is part of your storytelling

24:00 Why the 9-5, 40-hour work week is dead… And the women pursuing amazing alternatives

26:30 How Fleur knows when her personal brand is helping others – and what it means for her and her career to be of service in the world and doing work that matters to her

30:00 The gender pay gap, how this is still such a big issue today, and how Fleur is helping to improve this issue and close the gender pay gap for women through Freelancing Gems

35:50 The mindset issues around personal brand building Fleur has faced, and how she moved through them, including the question of sharing personal vs business on socials, what she decided – and what the result was

39:00 Rapid-fire questions with Fleur, including her favourite podcast, and her final words of inspiration

42:16 Bec & Andres have a post-interview chat to discuss highlights of the episode and what we took out of it to help you build your personal brand