From Madison Avenue to Wall Street to the halls of academe, Catherine Kaputa perfected her ability to market products, places, and companies. She learned brand strategy from Al Ries and Jack Trout at Trout & Ries Advertising, and then led the award-winning "I ¢¾ NY" campaign at Wells, Rich, Greene. For over ten years she was SVP, Director of Advertising and Community Affairs at Citi Smith Barney, and she taught branding and advertising at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Yet Catherine discovered that the most important application for branding is not for products - it's for individuals to define and own their career identity and create their own performance success.

That's why Catherine launched SelfBrand LLC, a New York City-based personal branding company and wrote the award-winning book, You Are a BRAND! How Smart People Brand Themselves for Business Success, winner of the Ben Franklin award for Best Career Book 2007 and a bronze IPPY award. (The hardcover edition was published as U R a Brand!) Catherine's new book on women's leadership is The Female Brand, Using the Female Mindset to Succeed in Business.

After all, corporate icons and star entertainers all understand what it takes to be in control and in demand - a unique brand. In her talks and workshops, Catherine shows you how to use principles from the commercial world of brands and apply them to the best asset - you.

Catherine has spoken at a wide range of organizations as part of talent development, sales training, motivational and client meetings and diversity and women's initiatives. She has been featured on CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Fortune, The London Observer, Pink Magazine and was a "Cool Friend" on TomPeters.com.

Catherine has a BA from Northwestern University, an MA from the University of Washington and was a Ph.D. Candidate at Harvard University.

You are a Brand!: Building a Personal Brand

Successful products, corporate icons, and Hollywood celebrities all have what it takes to be in control and in demand - a unique brand.

Today, companies demand employees do more with less, be more entrepreneurial and affect bottom line results, and demonstrate personal effectiveness. That's why personal branding has become a critical element of every leader's skill set.

Based on the ideas in Kaputa's award-winning book, You Are a Brand!, you will learn through vivid case-study examples and stories how to use brand strategies and principles and apply them to your best product? Brand You. The program covers the multi-step branding process, developing your own personal brand strategy and a personal marketing plan to bring value to you and your company. You'll learn how to lead and work as a team member more effectively and create a strong productive organization needed to succeed in today's changing environment.

The Female Brand: Creating More Female Business Leaders

Women are now over fifty percent of the workforce, but only a fraction are senior executives at corporations. Why is that? And what can we do - female executives who want to be more successful, and male and female executives supervising women as well as men - to bring more women up the pipeline?

This talk will introduce new findings in gender research and female aptitudes, along with new insights into why it can be different for women in business. Based on the research and ideas in Kaputa's book, The Female Brand, executives will leave with fresh insights and practical ideas they can implement to foster female leadership, and create an environment where talented women thrive. Most important, female executives will learn key aptitudes they can harness to build a successful career identity that gives them impact and recognition.

Brand Yourself with the Confidence Gene - For Women

Why aren't more women rising up the ranks? Why do many of the top female graduates of prestigious universities and professional schools get stuck or derailed in their careers - the very same people who were top performers in the academic world? A key reason is that women are not as good at branding themselves as confident leaders as men are, and that is something that we must change. After all, the majority of people who suffer from the Imposter Syndrome are high achieving women studies show. Not speaking up in meetings will brand you as someone who isn't up to the job. Not having a power network of relationships will brand you as a B player. Not demonstrating political savvy will brand you as a lower level employee. In this talk and workshop, you'll learn tangible tactics to brand yourself as a confident leader and change behavior so that you are perceived differently and can have more impact and career success.

Impact! Branding Yourself as a Leader

How would your organization be better if your managers were better leaders? After all, managers are plentiful, but leaders are rare. The difference between a "good" leader and a "great" leader - a leadership brand - is the ability to inspire confidence that the future will be better under your leadership. Leadership brands maximize the group's potential and attract followers to their leadership.

Why many believe that leaders are born, not made, in fact we can all learn how to be better leaders. This talk will cover key aptitudes critical to leadership and how to cultivate them in yourself. Organizations need to cultivate a leadership brand mindset that reflects the organization's brand and is consistent and recognizable across the organization and to people on the outside. Leadership is particularly important in today's complex, global environment. Leadership brands stand for something relevant and enduring - they inspire hope about the future. Strong leaders not only have intelligence and experience, they have "soft power" - the ability to inspire and attract followers and give them the strength to prevail - and cultivate a culture of leadership.

Networking Ph.D. - Building a Power Brand Network

In most businesses, a "Ph.D. in networking" is invaluable. With a power contacts and alliances, you will always be a go-to player. This highly-interactive talk will give you a mini Ph.D. in networking. You'll learn about the "networking economy" and how it can give you "career capital." You'll learn how to build more and better relationships within your company - alliances with colleagues, senior executives, clients and consultants - the foundation for your future within the company. You'll learn how to network better outside of your company - the foundation for your success in your industry and throughout your career. You'll learn the importance of strategic networking - tactics for networking with specific people who would be valuable to your network. You'll learn the different types of people you need and how to build them, how to take the work out of networking, and strategies for asking for help. In short, you'll learn how to build the kind of network to succeed in today's demanding business climate.

The Art of Pitching and Persuasion

Many of us never took a course in persuasion. Yet the ability to pitch our ideas and services, negotiate a good deal for ourselves or our company and persuade others impacts us every day in business. The art of persuasion is the basis of all effective branding, and this talk will cover strategies and tactics from the commercial world of brands, and how to apply them on the job to be more effective in selling your ideas and proposals. Through interactive examples, you will learn how to be more persuasive and successful in your pitches, presentations and negotiations.

Client Leadership: How to Brand Yourself as the Client Go-To Person

Business leaders with client impact are not easy to find. Just ask a client. A leader is someone clients would follow to a place that they wouldn't go to by themselves. And that takes a lot of trust and belief in their ability to bring about a better outcome. In many careers - law, banking, consulting, advertising - it's all about the client. Clients are looking for business advisors they can trust - who they can count on for the right advice and solutions, not the expected advice and solutions. To be successful as a client leader, you need to be smart and hard working for sure, but you also need to be someone clients see as a brand apart from others, someone dedicated to their success, someone that they are emotionally in tune with. In this highly-interactive talk, you will learn though vivid case study examples key personal branding practices to create client impact.

The Innovative Branding Mindset

The innovative branding mindset is a method, a way of thinking and a state of mind. And it's a mindset that everyone can learn even if you aren't "creative." At its core, branding is about creative disruption that overturns conventions and leads to breakout ideas, trends, messages, processes, channels and cultures. The innovative branding process is a collaborative process that believes that putting together highly diverse teams that come at the problem from multiple directions fosters the best creative disruption. In this highly interactive talk, you will learn how to adopt the innovative branding mindset to bring more success to your company and its businesses.

Rebranding Yourself for the Next Level or Career Change

Never before have our organizations been more challenged and demanded more of their employees. Yet it is easy to get stuck - to be branded in the job we have. The fact is while hard work is important, it is not enough to succeed. You have to be recognized as a high potential employee - and that is a different skill set - a branding skill set. Because in the real world, perceptions are paramount. This talk will cover key strategies and tactics for positioning yourself for the next level, for branding yourself as a high potential employee. Sometimes the best strategy to get to the next level is a lateral move. What's critical is that you must take the time to know what you want to happen. It is a decision to act or not to act. This talk will cover tactics for getting the career outcome you want.

Closing the Sale with Your Brand

In sales, you're selling the person - Brand You - as much as the product or service. Great sales professionals, like brands, are truly customer-focused. As customers become more sophisticated with more options, it is critical for sales people to create profitable, lifetime relationships with their customers. Likewise, in branding, you maximize strengths by developing the best image, message and action plan to engage your customers. Through practical, real life examples, you will learn how to use branding principles to achieve more sales success to not just meet the needs of your customers, but turn them into brand evangelists for Brand You.

Are You Business Savvy?

To be successful in business today, talent and hard work, though important, are not enough. You also need to be perceived as someone with business savvy - a combination of political savvy - street smarts about people and organizations, and business smarts - the ability to make smart, innovative business decisions. Business savvy is something that smart brand managers apply to their brands, and you need to develop for Brand You. Traditionally, many people have disliked and avoided office politics, but you avoid it at your peril. After all, leaders are good politicians and good politicians are leaders. As companies are demanding more of their employees to take more risks (but smart ones), to building stronger alliances with clients and executive leaders and to try and anticipate the future, business savvy is a critical skill for every leader.

Entrepreneur Brand: Building a Successful Business and Personal Brand - In Tandem

Look at the most successful entrepreneurial brands. Chances are you'll find a savvy entrepreneur who build a business brand in tandem with a personal brand. Think Bill Gates and Microsoft. Steve Jobs and Apple. Martha Stewart and MSL Omnimedia. Richard Branson and Virgin. This talk or workshop will take you though the process of smart branding for you and your business. You'll learn the importance of finding your big idea and then developing a strong visual and verbal identity for yourself and your business, and a visibility plan that will set you apart from the pack.

Building Your Brand Through Social Media - Bit by Bit

Thanks to social media, both personal branding and community are red hot. And social networking is not just for people in transition or entrepreneurs with something to sell or techies who know about bits and bytes. It's something that everyone should participate in or you will be left behind. Many web 2.0 tools designed for building community and fostering lively discussions - like LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter - are great for executives and professionals who want to increase their visibility, expand their networks and stay on the cutting edge of what's happening in their industry. This talk or workshop will show you how to bring maximum value to yourself and the company you work for through using modern social networking tools and tactics.

The focus areas of my keynote talks and workshops are:

• Personal Branding, Soft Power and Leadership: How to create more business success for yourself and your company based on You Are a Brand!
• Women's Leadership: How to create more female leaders based on my book, The Female Brand, Using the Female Mindset for Business Success
• Innovation, Intrapreneurship and Brand-Building: How corporate intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs innovate to transform a small idea into a big brand, based on my forthcoming book, Breakthrough Branding.
• Communication, Selling and Persuasion: How to improve your communication technique, persuasion and ability to influence others based on You Are a Brand! and Branding.