A few weeks ago, I received a message from a prospective client.
He had been referred to me by an executive recruiter and was preparing to move forward.
Before making a payment, he reached out to ask whether the email he received had come from me.
It had not.
Someone had created an email address using my name, pretended to be me, and asked him to pay through a platform I have never used.
Fortunately, he noticed something felt off.
He stopped and contacted me directly.
That decision protected both of us.
My first reaction was frustration.
Then I started thinking about trust.
I have spent years building my business, serving clients, developing referral relationships, and earning recommendations. Someone tried to use the reputation I had built to deceive another person.
The experience reminded me how quickly someone can question a reputation that took years to earn.
For executives, reputation affects far more than how people view them.
It influences who recommends them, who takes their call, who invites them into a conversation, and who considers them for an opportunity.
That reputation deserves protection.
It also needs to be represented accurately.
Your Reputation Arrives Before You Do
Executives build their reputations through their work.
They make difficult decisions.
They lead teams.
They solve problems.
They deliver results.
They earn the trust of colleagues, customers, boards, investors, and employees.
Years ago, most of that reputation lived with the people who had worked with you.
Today, much of it also lives online.
Before contacting you, someone might:
Search your name.
Read your LinkedIn profile.
Review your résumé.
Look at your company biography.
Find an article you wrote.
Watch an interview.
Ask someone in their network about you.
They are forming an opinion before you ever speak with them.
Several executives have also told me that employers are relying less on the references candidates provide.
The reason is understandable.
Candidates choose their own references.
Employers already expect those people to say positive things.
Many hiring leaders and executive recruiters want information they did not receive directly from the candidate.
They search online.
They review LinkedIn activity.
They look at articles, interviews, speaking engagements, board roles, and company information.
They also contact people in their own networks to ask what they know about the candidate.
By the time a company requests formal references, it may already have formed a strong opinion.
The question is not whether people are evaluating your reputation.
They are.
The question is whether what they find reflects the leader you are today.
Two Ways Your Reputation Gets Misrepresented
The first is obvious.
Someone else misrepresents you.
That is what happened to me.
Someone tried to use my name and reputation to convince a prospective client to send money.
The second is less obvious and far more common.
Executives misrepresent themselves without realizing it.
Not because they exaggerate.
Because they leave too much out.
One executive came to me after sending hundreds of résumés and receiving little response.
He believed companies were not interested in his background.
After reviewing his résumé, I saw the problem.
His experience was strong.
He had led major initiatives, influenced senior leaders, managed complex work, and delivered meaningful results.
His résumé did not show it.
It focused heavily on responsibilities.
His strongest results were buried.
The scope of his leadership was unclear.
His LinkedIn profile no longer reflected the level at which he was operating.
Inside his company, people knew his reputation.
Outside the company, recruiters had no way to see it.
They were not rejecting his leadership.
They were not seeing enough of it to respond.
His problem was very different from mine, but the result was similar.
Someone else tried to create a false story about me.
His career materials created an incomplete story about him.
In both cases, people were being asked to make decisions based on the wrong information.
Reputation and Executive Brand Are Different
Your reputation comes from what people experience when they work with you.
Your executive brand communicates that reputation to people who do not know you yet.
Your reputation is earned through your actions and results.
Your executive brand shows others what you have earned.
This distinction matters because strong performance does not always translate into a strong market presence.
You might have an excellent reputation inside your organization and still struggle to gain traction outside it.
You might have led major transformations, improved profitability, built strong teams, or influenced enterprise strategy.
If your résumé and LinkedIn profile fail to communicate those results, employers will not assume they happened.
They will evaluate what they see.
Doing Great Work Is Not Enough
Strong performance still matters most.
Yet executives also need to manage how their work and leadership appear to others.
Ask yourself:
❓ What appears when someone searches my name?
❓ Does my LinkedIn profile reflect the leader I am today?
❓ Does my résumé show my impact or list my responsibilities?
❓ Are my résumé, LinkedIn profile, biography, and company information consistent?
❓ Would an executive recruiter understand my value within the first minute?
❓ Would someone recognize a suspicious message claiming to come from me?
❓ Have I reviewed my online presence recently?
These questions are not about self-promotion.
They are about making sure the information connected to your name is accurate.
Look at Yourself Through Someone Else’s Eyes
Imagine an executive recruiter receives your résumé tomorrow.
They search your name before contacting you.
What do they find?
Does everything support the story your résumé tells?
Does your LinkedIn profile strengthen your credibility?
Does your online presence reflect your current leadership level?
Or does it create confusion?
Now consider the opposite problem.
Someone receives an unexpected email using your name.
Would they know how you normally communicate?
Would they know where to verify the message?
Would anything in the email make them question whether it was really from you?
Your reputation is affected by what you do.
It is also affected by what people find, what they hear, and what they believe.
Your Story Is Already Being Told
My experience with the fraudulent email reinforced something I already knew from working with executives.
People make decisions based on the information available to them.
Sometimes someone else creates false information.
Sometimes your own career materials fail to provide enough information.
Both create the same problem.
People see an inaccurate or incomplete picture.
You spend years building credibility.
Do not let someone else misuse it.
Do not let outdated career materials hide it.
Your reputation needs protection.
It also needs accurate representation.
Long before you walk into an interview, join a board meeting, or speak with a recruiter, someone may already have formed an opinion about you.
Make sure the information they find reflects the leader you worked so hard to become.