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Martha Josephson: Palo Alto’s Top Talent Sourcer

As the tech industry soars with start-ups and expansions, companies are continually seeking new talent: leaders who can innovate, emerging digital talent, senior management stars, board directors, and more.

Martha Josephson helps Silicon Valley’s leading large companies and most promising start-ups to find this new talent. She leads Egon Zehnder’s global Digital Media Practice, a pioneering specialty she launched in 1996 to serve the technology and communications niche. We interviewed her on the state of executive search in Silicon Valley, and what role reputation plays in it.

How does reputation — or industry-wide perception — play in sourcing tech leaders for top roles?

For both board and senior leadership roles, the story behind the company is crucial. It might be an early-stage company with great momentum, or an established company with an iconic brand. Regardless, the narrative is an important lure. This said, many companies at various crossroads strategically and operationally are also attractive. Conveying these situations in factual terms and highlighting the opportunities for improvement can make many eyes light up on the talent side.

Can you provide examples of companies that, in your view, are best-practice examples of how to communicate such narratives?

I think 23andMe has done a great job of this. They had a regulatory setback a few years ago that constrained them. Throughout the process of dealing with that, the CEO and leadership team were candid, humble, and determined in their public communications. When they successfully came out the other end of that challenge, people were literally cheering them on. I am also loving the story that Viacom tells talent these days. For a long time the company was distracted by boardroom and shareholder dramas. It didn’t really get to innovate in digital the way peer companies did. Today, a fresh management team tells a passionate story about investing and innovation around their iconic brands. They hint that maybe it isn’t so bad to be “late” to innovation since they have now learned from everyone else’s mistakes.

What role do Google search results play in your searches?

I use Google constantly to research companies, topics, and people, but rarely do I use it to find actual individual talent. There are other tools for that, as well as my trusted sources in a given sector, which I have found (still) the most effective assistance of all.

By that, you mean word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals? Do you find those more valuable than digital sources like LinkedIn?

Nothing can replace LinkedIn. It is indispensable in my work. However, what I need as well are insights and, frankly, judgements about people. These I get from direct conversations with knowledgeable people who are in a position to give me unbiased input. I will say that polishing one’s LinkedIn profile is a really good idea. If the profile is too skimpy, I am not going to be sure whether to bring an opportunity to that person or even whether to dig deeper with references.

What is your advice for women and people of color to advance faster in the tech industry?

There is no substitute for cultivating both mentors and champions. They are two different resources. Mentors take you under their wing and give you the wisdom to do your current job well and move up. Champions are the people who will always suggest and promote you for opportunities because they know you and believe in you.

Many tech CEOs in disruptive industries are facing (or recovering from) crises resulting from their personal behavior. How can they rebound from them?

I can say that awareness of these issues is now off the charts in recent history. Some people can rebound and some can’t. In our work in developing executives for future leadership roles in their companies (which, in addition to search, we also do a lot), we consistently try to help build self-awareness and a conscious, deliberate leadership style. We don’t stint with even the most uncomfortable feedback. This helps. In my personal work, I have noticed that CEOs with sisters and/or daughters don’t tend to have these issues.

In closing, any tips for CEOs and their boards who may be facing crises based on their behavior or company cultures?

Have your support team ready. These could be mentors, advisors, trusted professional friends, communications specialists, etc. When a crisis breaks, it is a very lonely time and people in that situation need to talk and plan with bullet-proof resources who have perspective. For boards, crises can be no less emotional and my advice is the same.

Martha has been a partner at Egon Zehnder for 16 years, and is industry recognized as a trusted advisor to many of the world’s most admired organizations. She is one of the most sought -after and reputed talent consultants in Silicon Valley, and from her base in Palo Alto operates locally and globally to secure, retain and develop exceptional C-level and board talent for the world’s leading e-based and media-centric organizations. She leads the firm’s significant relationship with Google, handling more than 300 executive searches as their primary partner over the course of the last ten plus years.

Martha earned an AB from Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude, and an MBA from Columbia Graduate School of Business.

This is the twentieth in a series of interviews with experts whose work relates to online reputation management.

 
 
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Robert Weiss: Video Content Creator

Video content is king in the search engine optimization (SEO) world. In the reputation and crisis management world, it is a critical communications tool. We asked Robert Weiss, president of MultiVision Digital, a business video content marketing agency in New York, what you need to know to utilize online video content to your best advantage.

Why is online video content an important tool for online reputation building and repair?

Reputation management is the process of populating or refreshing the first page of Google with relevant content that will resonate with the searching audience and thus achieve a high ranking. Over the past few years, online video content has become the content of choice for many people. They are seeking out video more and more because it gives them what they are looking for — an informative picture of you and your business. So when people go searching for your company’s name and/or an issue, you can have your informative and relevant content come up in the SERPs (search engine result pages) to provide the answers and information they are looking for. Google gives preference to the best content that provides answers to their customers’ questions.

How do you advise readers to plan their reputation management video content strategy?

If reputation or crisis management is your objective, plan to create many videos within a budget rather than just one video with a high production value. The first step in this approach is to stop thinking about video. Instead, think about your business. What questions are people asking about it? Who in your organization is working on interesting things to resolve your clients’ issues? Once you have these answers, create an online video production plan to best support those talking points. That way, when people search for your company, and the issue at hand, the video content that you have created, and you have control of, can outrank any new story that might get published.

What are essential steps for a video content marketing strategy?

Create video content that answers common questions your customers have. These might be about how your product works, or about the process that you go through to deliver your service. Create several bite-size snippets of video content that inform, educate and show how and why the people at your company do what they do. If addressing crisis management, the content should illustrate what you are doing to resolve the issue at hand. Be transparent. Allow your team working on these products or services, or on problem resolution, to tell their part of the story in a compelling way. Another approach is to create thought leadership videos to counteract any negative rankings. Educate and inform people on new ways to look at your products, services or operational process. Inspire them to say “wow, I didn’t know that” or “I have that problem and didn’t even know it.” Don’t sell. Inform and educate. Enlighten your audience while giving them insight into your organization. Thought leadership videos, in conjunction with other crisis management videos, go hand in hand in building up positive content that you have control of and downplaying any negative press.

What role can video play in social media?

Once you have an online video content marketing library, you can use video to respond to any social media post. Because social media plays such a critical role in crisis management resolution, instead of replying with impersonal text responses, you can give your consumer base a high-touch, personal feel for your organization and how you’re going about resolving the issue at hand, in real time. Showing people is more effective than telling them. This is what makes video critical to any type of crisis management situation. When you can present videos that show your side of the story — again, not one video, but many videos that cover many different aspects of the story — while highlighting the people on your team who are working to fix the problem, it goes a long way in managing the narrative. Further, because video gives the most amount of information in the shortest amount of time and can convey a story with emotion and conviction, these videos can also be used to follow up with those news outlets that are creating negative stories about you, to convince them that you’re doing the right thing in responding to the problem.

So how do you integrate online video content into a crisis management situation?

If you are in a position in which you need to create online video marketing content in response to some type of crisis management situation, the first thing to do is acknowledge the issue at hand. Be transparent about the issue. Let people know the steps you are taking to correct the problem. Make sure that you have ongoing video that updates the public on the progress of your undertaking and the people who are undertaking it. Providing the media with controlled stories in which the CEO shows, rather than just talks about, the company’s response to the crisis, helps to deflect the media’s attention away from the CEO and direct it toward how the company is fixing the problem… and will ultimately give a more positive impression to the media and to the general public.

What is the benefit to having a video content marketing strategy in place for crisis management?

We’ve all seen companies that have been hit hard by negative news. Add in social media complaints and protests to the mix and the company can quickly lose control of the message. This can impact sales, shareholder value and reputation for a long time. A sound video content marketing strategy has many business applications, from branding to thought leadership to lead generation to the sales process, but for crisis and reputation management, it allows a business to take control of the message. With online video content, you can show the public that you acknowledge the crisis, convince them that you are taking ownership of it, and keep them apprised of how you are managing the crisis, in real time. Unfortunately, too few organizations have a crisis response plan in place that includes the ability to move quickly on preparing such videos. So the best thing to do is to start creating online video content today and have the experience and resources in place to respond should any crisis occur at your organization.

Robert Weiss has more than 15 years’ experience in digital marketing and sales. His company, MultiVision Digital, located in New York City, has produced more than 560 business videos over the past six years for clients ranging from solo-entrepreneurs to global Fortune 500 companies across almost every industry. MultiVision Digital’s expertise includes concept and budget planning, producing (planning, scripting, storyboarding, talent and editing) and YouTube video marketing services. A graduate of Bryant University, he is also a USA Hockey Level 3 coach. This is the nineteenth in a series of interviews with experts whose work relates to online reputation management.

 
 
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Dan Shefet

Dan Shefet is a Paris-based attorney whose firm, Cabinet Shefet, specializes in internet, intellectual and competition law.  When he forced Google to remove links to defamatory information about him in 2014, the case made worldwide headlines. He has since established the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID).  AAID is lobbying the European Commission to introduce rules to make it easier for others to remove harmful information online. Its board of directors includes experts and former government representatives in Denmark, Germany and many other countries.

At a recent Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly Session in Strasbourg, AAID’s Motion for Recommendation for the creation of an Internet Ombudsman was supported by 26 parliamentarians and 12 countries. That proposed Ombudsman will qualify content on the Internet as lawful or unlawful by means of a content review procedure. What are your next steps to push this initiative further?

We are very pleased that the values of a fairer and more humane internet reflected in AAID’s Charter is getting increasing support from policy makers and international organisations around the world. We have just welcomed to our Board Bruno Lanvin and Sam Pitroda and are excited to take the next steps to further our values.  Our analysis of both the net’s potential and actual harm to individuals, society (fake news, for instance) and world stability is winning increasing acceptance. Our proposals address a real and growing concern. We are emboldened by the support we have already secured from major international organizations. Our next steps will be to structure these contacts into partnerships that allow us to promote an “Internet of Values”. We plan to appoint local chapters of AAID, organize conferences, nominate Good Will Ambassadors and roll out a global media strategy. Also, we intend to publish a World Wide index on how well other country’s oversight of the internet protects human rights and promotes recognition of rights available to internet users beyond freedom of speech (or rather freedom to speak). Such an index will provide a deeper and truer picture of the protection of rights on the Net. 

With AAID, your goal is to make search engines legally responsible for the information they publish. You have gained tremendous support from European policy makers. Now, you are bringing the debate to America. How can the “Right to be Forgotten” initiative and your larger goals succeed in this land of freedom of speech?

We are staunch supporters of free speech. In our opinion the true meaning of freedom of speech is freedom to speak. Freedom to speak allows one to express their thoughts without muting or harming the ability of another to speak. We believe that this analysis is what the First Amendment essentially protects. It also reflects the common concern our American friends share about the internet becoming a weapon of hatred, incitement, defamation and intolerance. The freedom that is protected by the strong American tradition of free speech is exposed to increased corruption and dilution on the Internet due to the First Amendment’s exclusive and dominant protection. It is also enabled by the Communications Decency Act, Section 230, which governs Internet content in the U.S. and frees website owners from liability for what is posted on their sites. There is no cultural justification for human suffering. On more than one occasion have we seen the moral strength of the American people to do the right thing. We have no doubt that a balanced approach to the protection of human integrity, democracy and stability on the Internet can also be achieved in the US.

You have expressed concern over the lack of knowledge in the U.S. about the legal theory and philosophy behind the “Right to be Forgotten” and the European approach to Internet regulation. Please explain why and what you would like Americans to know or consider.  

The “Right to be Forgotten” is a misnomer. It refers to the right to have your name dereferenced under certain specific conditions. The judgment of the European Court of Justice of 13th May 2014 was — from a technical point view — an answer to a prejudicial question posed by the Court and Data Protection Agency in Madrid relative to the interpretation of the EU Directive 1995/46 (which has since been replaced by a Regulation on Data Privacy). In other words, the judgement reflects a pure legal analysis. However, this judgement has been misconstrued as conferring a right to anyone to have information about him/her deleted on an almost arbitrary basis thus infringing the right of the public to access information and thereby imposing a restriction on freedom of speech. The truth of the matter is that the right to be forgotten is a right to preserve personal integrity in a world where your very existence is a function of what the net says about you. It is the first effective legal protection of the individual against mob innuendo, rumor, and falsehoods.  It is the only defense provided against invisible and hitherto invincible forces when your life has turned into despair and daily suffering. It is not a right to have well-founded criticism about you deleted or suppressed.

You have spoken extensively about how the lawlessness, persecution of individuals and lack of accountability on the internet leads to human suffering. What is your advice to anyone facing such a situation? Are there any preventive steps you recommend?  

I call upon victims of cyber persecution to write us at AAID. The only way to deal effectively with the problem is by putting pressure on policymakers and secure public support. Remember that the might of the internet Titans is built on clicks. If public opinion no longer supports their failure to recognize the value of us all as human beings (and not just big data statistics), those clicks may just go in another direction.

**

A French lawyer born in Denmark, Dan Shefet holds a Philosophy Degree and a Law Degree from the University of Copenhagen. Specializing in European Law, Competition Law as well as Human Rights in general and in the IT environment in particular, he participates in conferences in academic venues on IT Law, Data Privacy and Human Rights on the internet. In 2014 he founded the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID) the main objective of which is to introduce a general principle of accountability on the internet in order to secure the protection of human integrity. He serves as an Individual Specialist to UNESCO.

This is the fourteenth in a series of interviews with experts whose work relates to online reputation management.

Related topics:  

Critics Claim Communications Decency Act Enables Human Trafficking  

Removing Content from Google in the U.S.  

Online Reputations Hampered by Outdated Law

 
 
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reputation management for lawyers

U.S. authorities fighting human trafficking have identified the Communications Decency Act as an obstacle to stopping the crime. Anti-trafficking groups agree. Free speech proponents beg to differ, though. So does Silicon Valley.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article showing both sides of the issue. “Is Backpage.com a Champion of Web Freedoms or a ‘Dystopian Hell’?”, by John. D. McKinnon, illustrates its complexity. The Communications Decency Act, a law passed in 1996, is the main reason why little can be removed from the Internet in the U.S.

As the Journal article points out, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.com are among the tech companies that benefit from the Communications Decency Act.

We have written extensively about how the Communications Decency Act impacts online reputation management. If that is a topic of interest to you, then you will find Mr. McKinnon’s article illuminating.

 
 
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Our advice in this week’s Reputation Reboot will help you look your best on Google if you are preparing re-enter the job market.  It is in response to an MBA candidate who wants to put her best foot forward when prospective employers research her on the Internet. But our tips can be utilized by anyone undertaking a job search. Not only will they help differentiate yourself from your peers…they can become a major asset in your long-term career development.

 
 
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Social media is an important platform for 2016 Presidential candidates. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram matter because they are where 18-24 year olds are getting their news – and communicating with their friends. Women are big social media users, too. Getting them to the polls will impact who wins the election.

In Hillary’s Race For 2016: Turning Followers Into Votes, on Forbes.com, I examine which candidates are winning on social media. Here are five reasons why Hillary is in the lead:

1.She has the most control over her online image: if anyone enters a Google search for “Hillary Clinton,” much of the first two pages of results will be sites she manages. Her digital assets include:

2. Facebook. She has almost one million likes on Facebook, where women aged 18 to 29 are the majority of users.

3. Twitter. Hillary has almost 4 million followers on Twitter; Jeb Bush just over 250,000. 37% of female Internet users between the ages of 18-29 use Twitter.

4. Instagram. Instagram is the most popular social media platform for people in their 20s.

5. She has an Official Hillary 2016 Playlist on Spotify – a collection of upbeat, inspiring songs to accompany her campaign. They can be widely shared by followers on their Facebook and Twitter feeds.

This doesn’t mean the other candidates lack digital assets (Donald Trump’s substantial media footprint includes almost 2 million Facebook likes).  It just illustrates the importance of social media currency in the 2016 election…and elsewhere in politics.

This post includes excerpts from an essay first published by Forbes.com on June 22, 2015. That article has been shared over 14,000 times on Facebook.

 
 
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Business News Daily has published an in-depth guide to choosing a reputation management service.

Three important takeaways:

Whether you’re a business or an individual, it’s important to understand how reputation management services can help you, and to make sure you know what ORM companies can and can’t do and what makes a service trustworthy and effective.

While the majority of ORM providers offer the same basic services, every company is different. It’s important that you choose the best one for you and your business. And handling a reputation management issue quickly and tactfully may be more important than you realize.

Reputation management campaigns often use questionable black hat practices, but they fall into an ethical gray area and can ultimately do more harm to your brand than good. Make sure that the ORM service you choose avoids these tactics and is clear about what it can and cannot do for you.

Shannon Wilkinson, Reputation Communications’ founder and CEO, is a featured expert. Her advice:

“If you are a recent college graduate, you will be best served by a company experienced in removing inappropriate or outdated photographs and information on social media platforms,” Wilkinson said. “Doctors, dentists and attorneys, as well as storefront businesses like restaurants, find online reviews to be their biggest challenge. They might obtain best results using a review management firm.”

And “if you are a high-profile industry leader, VIP or have a rising presence in business, you face different issues and will want a firm that specializes in that sector,” Wilkinson added.

 
 
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Future Crimes by Marc Goodman

Marc Goodman’s Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It (Doubleday, $30), is a must-read.  Goodman has spent a career in law enforcement and technology, including serving as a futurist-in-residence with the FBI.

Future Crimes exposes the ways criminals, corporations and countries are using new and emerging technologies against you – and how this makes you more vulnerable than you ever imagined.

Here are two excerpts that stand out:

If you don’t own and control your own online persona, it’s extremely easy for a criminal to aggregate the known information about you and use it for a wide variety of criminal activity, ranging from identity theft to espionage. Indeed, there are many such examples of this occurring, especially for high-profile individuals.

The more data you produce, the more organized crime is happy to consume. Many social media companies have been hacked, including LinkedIn (6.5 million accounts), Snapchat (4.6 million names and phone numbers), Google, Twitter and Yahoo. Transactional crime groups are responsible for a full 85% of those data breaches, and their goal is to extract the greatest amount of data possible , with the highest value in the cyber underground.

In 2013, the data broker Experian mistakenly sold the personal data of nearly two-thirds of all Americans to an organized crime group in Vietnam. The massive breach occurred because Experian failed to do due diligence.

Goodman concludes Future Crimes with an appendix of tips that will help readers avoid more than 85 percent of the digital threats that they face each day. (Turning off your computer at night is one.)  Reading the book will help you understand why they are so important.