Ash Rathod

You already know storytelling is essential for your business and brand. But storytelling is much more than the words on your website, content and other communications. The right narrative can inform your short and long term strategy, help align your team, outmanoeuvre the competition and build a tribe of ambassadors.It can help you attract and retain the right customers who are willing to pay you more for a longer period of time and tell others to do the same.It's about high level performance. ie. increasing profits for the business and providing unique value to the people you serve.I specialise in guiding businesses do exactly this. My philosophy centres on a "Story-First Approach," a method that has proven to be the missing link for many who struggle with brand identity and growth.The challenge most people face when building a brand is twofold: either they're paralysed by indecision, never taking the first step, or they jump in headfirst, producing content without a coherent strategy. Both paths lead to a stagnant or unclear identity. The root cause? A lack of strategic direction.  I can help with that.---I studied media and communications specialising in script-writing, where my love for storytelling started. I worked in TV media alongside the London arm of global ad agencies such as StarCom, OMD, PHD Media and many smaller DRTV agencies. My portfolio stretched across global FMCG, (P&amp;G and Unilever) and automotive (Ford and Toyota) brands before moving to Turner Broadcasting (now Warner Bros. Discovery) to work on kids brands (such as Mattel and Hasbro). As the online world began to grow, I moved into Digital Marketing where I helped scale the Manchester office of a Bournemouth based media agency, going from media owner to client side, which consisted of a team of 20+ designers, marketers, copywriters and BDMs.Then after a short sales role at BT, I decided to start my own creative agency, to help start-ups to SMEs with with their communications online.This was almost 16 years ago. I'm proud to say I still run and I own that brand consultancy and design studio in the UK which has focused on serving start-ups to corporations over those years. Right now my focus covers:L&amp;D Training (1:1 &amp; Corporate teams)Speaking at eventsBrand Strategy workshops for start-ups and SMEs.None of these are an overnight fix.But if you are serious about shaping and growing your brand, I can help you do this faster than most.NB. My profile picture has been touched up with AI to change the colour of my shirt and  background

Brand Story Strategist | Managing Director

A brand strategy + design collective specializing in creating compelling content for digital communications. We work with forward-thinking founders, c-suite stakeholders, and marketing teams who passionately strive to lead the change in making the world of work a better place for all.

Our capabilities include:

Brand Strategy

  - Storytelling for brands 
  - Storytelling for leaders

Activation

  - Content Production
  - Media Planning

Roman Pikalenko 🇺🇦🦩

Turning Impact Leaders into Authority Figures Through Powerful Stories | Ghostwriting LinkedIn & Educational Email Courses ✍️📚

Climate tech founders are building world-changing solutions.But most of them are invisible online.Meanwhile, fossil fuel lobbyists have near-infinite marketing budgets. Greenwashers dominate the conversation. Climate deniers spread misinformation to millions.The people actually solving the problem? They're too busy building to talk about it.That's where I come in.As a climate tech ghostwriter, I build LinkedIn thought leadership for Series A+ climate tech CEOs and founders — helping them take control of the narrative and build visibility that compounds.Here's how it works:→ 6-12 month projects built on weekly or bi-weekly interviews→ I extract your expertise and turn it into content that sounds like you→ Full strategy, content planning, and profile optimization included→ Continuous improvement baked in (that's what Kaizen means)I'm not an agency with 47 writers and a sales team. I'm a solo operator with a limited client roster, which means you work directly with me — every interview, every post, every edit.Results my clients have seen:→ Inbound leads and investor connection requests→ Podcast invitations and speaking opportunities→ Top talent reaching out directly→ Measurable traffic to demos, books, and qualification surveysI've worked with 20+ climate leaders across 4 continents, including 3 LinkedIn Top Voices and a Forbes 30 Under 30 founder. Collectively, my clients have raised $200M+.I've ghostwritten 1,000+ posts and have been running Kaizen for almost 3 years.If you're looking to take control of your narrative and start building your visibility, DM me "climate" and I'm happy to talk more.

Growth Marketer

~ Running company social media marketing operations
~ Running paid ad campaigns on social and Google Ads
~ Inbound and content marketing

I posted about wanting to go back to study 4 weeks ago.

37 comments. DMs I wasn't expecting.

People sharing their own "I went back to school mid-career" stories.

Here's where things are at:

→ I started with Aalto's Open Uni
→ My first course is on M.E.T.A.LS. (or Metallurgical Engineering and Technical Analysis of Lifecycle and Sustainability)
→ One hour a day after work, before bed + weekends

It's humbling.

I haven't done anything close to formal studying in 9+ years.

And the 18-year-olds in the same course are probably better at it than I am.

But I'm also more motivated than I've ever been.

Back in high school, I'd scoff at nerds doing physics.

(not that I was a cool kid or anything)

Now, I want to actually understand the science behind what I write about every day.

And then maybe apply it to something else 👀

—

A small update for the people who asked.

The experiment continues.

PS. If you've done full-time work + full-time studying — drop your best tip below. Seriously.

Roman Pikalenko 🇺🇦🍉

I turn $10M+ Series A climate tech founders & execs into LinkedIn thought leaders to attract capital & talent | Helped 3x LinkedIn Top Voices & 10+ climate tech founders | Obsessed with solar right now ☀️

The fastest way to build authority in a new climate niche:

Stop talking about yourself.

Almost a year ago, I started highlighting a climate tech founder every Monday.

Not the famous ones. Not the people raising $200M or working with Bill Gates. Lesser-known founders doing exceptional work that most people hadn't heard of yet.

I called it Climate Founder Mondays.

At first, I just thought these founders deserved more attention. And I wanted to be more embedded in the world I was writing for.

38 founders later:

The quality of who's engaging with my content changed. Climate tech founders, VCs, senior execs started showing up in my comments and DMs. New conversations started. Clients came from spaces I hadn't even been targeting.

Here's why it worked — and why a content series might be the most underrated move on LinkedIn:

1/ It builds credibility without you having to claim it.

When you consistently highlight what's worth paying attention to in your ecosystem, your audience starts to see you as someone with their finger on the pulse.

I had almost no track record in climate tech when I started. A year of Monday posts helped change that.

2/ Every post reaches an audience you'd never get to otherwise.

Before each post, I connect with the founder I'm featuring. After it goes live, I send one message:

"Hey, wrote a post about your work. Hope you like it."

About 2 out of 3 posts get reshared by someone from that founder's community — people who had never heard of me before.

One post about Liz Dennett, CEO of Endolith, brought roughly 20-30 chemical engineers and sustainable mining specialists into my orbit in a single week.

3/ It makes consistency effortless.

A content series kills the blank page problem at least once a week. The format is already decided.

You pick the who or the what and follow the structure. After a few weeks, it becomes a habit.

The research becomes interesting. The writing becomes almost secondary.

—

This approach is built on 'borrowed credibility' concept.

3 things to avoid if you try this approach:

First, make sure you still show your own credibility in other posts. Your journey, behind-the-scenes, other proof of progress. Takes both to become the category leader.

Second, don't share the same viral videos everyone else is sharing on LinkedIn. I can't tell you how many people have posted about Notpla, for example, 2-3 times in the last 3 months.

Third, keep it within your niche. If you're a solar founder, maybe don't highlight vertical farming. Tempting, I know.

—

If you were to start a content series like this, what would it be?

Would love to know.

I named my business Kaizen.

Most people assume it's a clever brand name.

It's actually more of a personal commitment.

Kaizen (改善) is a Japanese concept: continuous, incremental improvement — as a way of life, but also a strategy.

I started using it as a business principle in 2023.

3 years in, it's still the most useful framework I've found.

In practice, it means:

→ Every client's content gets measurably better over 12 months. I'm constantly refining.

→ My internal processes become more efficient. I've recently been working only 5 days a week, yet I have more clients than ever.

→ I'm always upskilling and building. Could be sales practice, a new vertical, or adding email to my strategy.

The problem with LinkedIn is that most people are chasing the spike.

The viral post. The big announcement.

But true visibility doesn't work that way.

It builds quietly. Over months.

Till one day you look up and realize you're the person people think of first.

—

Does your brand name hold a deeper meaning you haven't shared?

Last Friday, I spoke at Climate Drift's Thought Leadership for Humans program.

The Q&A after was fire. Here are 6 questions I got from people in climate (and my honest answers):

Q1: Will AI replace ghostwriters?

Think of AI like Photoshop was for graphic designers. It's a tool, not a replacement. My job isn't writing posts — it's building your presence, course-correcting when things go sideways, and extracting stories you didn't know you had. AI can't do that. If anything, AI raised my client cap from 5 to 7.

Q2: LinkedIn reach is dropping. Should I even bother?

The reach is declining because LinkedIn is going the Facebook route — incentivizing people to pay for distribution that used to be free. But you don't need 50,000 impressions per post. You need the right 50 people to see your post and start a conversation. Focus on profile views, # of conversations started, or revenue as the right metrics.

Q3: Should I start with LinkedIn or an email newsletter?

LinkedIn is your distribution channel. Email is your middle channel. If you start a newsletter without an audience, you'll need to drive traffic from somewhere anyway. Start on LinkedIn. Build the list from there. Then email becomes your insurance policy when the algorithm gets worse.

Q4: I have multiple goals — speaking, advising, growing my business. How do I choose?

You can't pursue them all at once. Something always has to give. For example, if you want to speak and advise? Podcasts are a stepping stone — you build credibility for advising while getting reps as a speaker, without traveling.

Q5: Should I expand to Twitter or Bluesky?

Only if you've maxed out your current platform. Take your 20-50 best-performing posts from LinkedIn and use them as your starter library on the new platform. If you don't have that library yet, you haven't finished building your foundation.

Q6: How do I build an audience in a niche I'm new to?

Borrowed credibility. Highlight people already in the space. I do this every Monday — I pick a lesser-known climate tech founder and tell their story. Tag them. Connect beforehand. 2 out of 3 times, their network engages and a chunk of them follow you. You're borrowing their audience by giving them recognition.

—

These questions came from a variety of people:

Small business owners
Heads of startup incubator programs
Jobseekers
Climate scientists

If you're in climate and want to start building your LinkedIn presence but don't know where to begin, follow me. I share stuff like this regularly.

What question would you add to this list?

PS. Huge thanks to Katie Gilbert and Marco Morawec, for inviting me as a speaker once again 🙏

This wasn’t on my 2026 bucket list, but...

…I just took my first step towards my STEM degree!

I’m now officially a student at Aalto Open University. And I decided to start with a course that would’ve given me a headache 5 years ago:

Metallurgical Engineering and Technical Analysis of Lifecycle and Sustainability.

Or M.E.T.A.L.S. for short.

(gotta love the creative name)

I picked it for a few reasons:

- It’s 100% self-faced and online
- It’s 5 CTS (I need 45 to qualify for a bachelors)
- I have time till end of June to submit the assignments
- And metals are kinda cool (idk where this is coming from)

I’ve put aside about 5h/week as a start for this.

Will keep you updated on how it goes!

PS. Should I start a BTS series covering everything I learn?

A founder told me last week:

"I've been thinking about LinkedIn for 2 years. Just haven't started."

I asked what was holding her back.

"I don't know what to say."

It's always interesting to me. In her case, she'd spent 8 years building something the world can't afford to ignore.

100s of customer calls. Investor decks. Team offsites.

She had opinions, stories, and proof — everywhere.

Her problem wasn't the lack of copywriting knowledge.

She had an idea capture problem.

Struggling to extract what's already there.

That's my whole job as a climate tech ghostwriter btw:

→ A 30-60-minute call every week
→ A few good questions
→ And 3+ years of experience on how to turn founder-speak into something people actually stop to read

Trust me when I say this:

The ideas are never the problem.

—

What's your relationship with LinkedIn right now?

They've been best friends since 9th grade.

One left her corporate career at P&G. The other dropped out of medical school.

Today, they're backed by Y Combinator and building the world's first polyester alternative made from food waste.

Meet Myra Arshad and Avneet Ghotra, co-founders of ALT TEX.

Myra grew up watching her mother run a cut-and-sew business she'd built from scratch after immigrating from Pakistan.

That put Myra inside the fashion industry's dirty secret:

60% of all clothing contains polyester.

A petroleum-derived material responsible for 35% of all ocean microplastics that never biodegrades.

Meanwhile, her best friend Avneet was at U of T studying environmental science and biochemistry.

She cared deeply about the problem.

She just didn't know yet that Myra had the missing piece.

In 2019, Myra called Avneet with a plan.

"Come to my kitchen. Let's figure this out."

Avneet left medical school. Myra left P&G.

They started experimenting with discarded apples, banana peels, rotten tomatoes — whatever post-industrial food waste they could get their hands on.

Their breakthrough?

A patent-pending fermentation process that converts food waste into biodegradable biofibre that works with existing polyester supply chains.

No factory overhaul required.

Each shirt made from ALT TEX fabric:

→ Diverts 1 kg of food waste from landfill 
→ Avoids 9 kg of carbon emissions 
→ Prevents 4 g of microplastics from entering the ocean 
→ Is 70% stronger than cotton

But turning a kitchen experiment into a commercial fabric isn't exactly easy.

They had to convince university professors to validate their findings, secure government grants, and navigate deep-tech materials science.

The persistence paid off.

Today, ALT TEX has:

→ Been backed by Y Combinator
→ Raised $2.3M USD in funding 
→ Secured $1M in pilot LOIs 
→ Won U of T's Adams Sustainability Prize 
→ Won H&M Foundation's Global Change Award (€200,000) 
→ Grown to a team of 10 in Toronto

Myra on the scale of the opportunity:

"We're not trying to make a niche Canadian company — this can be a $4 or $5 billion company within the next 10 years."

And if replacing polyester sounds ambitious — remember it's a $104B industry.

And it all started in a kitchen.

—

Would you swap your polyester for fabric made from food waste?

—

I plan to share more stories of exceptional climate leaders like Myra and Avneet every Monday for #ClimateFounderMondays

Follow me by clicking the bell icon on my profile to be the first notified about it next week 🔔

A climate investor once told me something I haven't stopped thinking about.

She sees 300+ inbound decks a year.

Before any meeting, she does one thing: she Googles the founder.

Not the company. The founder.

She's not looking for awards or press features.

They're important, but they don't tell her much about the person.

She's looking for proof that this person understands the problem they're solving — and can articulate why NOW is the moment.

That's it.

A few questions she goes through:

→ Do they have a point of view?
→ Can they explain their sector without buzzwords?
→ Do they engage with what's happening in the space — or just announce their own milestones?

Most founders who are fundraising right now undermine their strategy.

They build a content strategy around their company.

But investors want to meet the founder, not the brand.

After all, they're investing millions in the leadership and the team.

—

What does your LinkedIn say about you right now?

First podcast appearance in a while. Really enjoyed the chat, cheers Sergey Leshchenko!

Producing video podcasts and growing YouTube for your business🎙️Cinematic videos for ads 📺 Host of Be Yourself Pod

My guest today is a fellow Ukrainian Roman Pikalenko 🇺🇦🍉 who made a bold move: leaving a stable corporate marketing career to become a solopreneur in a completely different arena.

After organically growing his LinkedIn audience to 15K followers, Roman took advice from Matt Barker and pivoted into ghostwriting and LinkedIn strategy for climate tech founders 🌍 —> helping them attract investors, talent, and attention.

What impressed me about Roman’s journey is how intentional it was. No overnight hacks. Just experiments, consistency, and sticking to a niche long enough for the compounding to kick in.

This episode is a guidebook on:
 • how founders use LinkedIn to raise capital and hire talent 💼
 • why niche positioning beats trying to appeal to everyone 🎯
 • the biggest personal branding mistakes founders make
 • why AI won’t fix your content strategy 🤖
 • how patience quietly builds inbound opportunities

📺 Check on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eE-DZ4Wt
🎙️ Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/efUUzMGj

In the last 3 years, I've ghostwritten for 6 different co-founders (2 co-founders in 3 different companies).

Almost every scenario is the same:

One founder is posting.
The other is quiet.

Or they're both posting, but saying nearly the same things.

Both situations shrink your combined reach without you realizing it.

Not great.

In fact, I genuinely believe every co-founder has a UNIQUE PoV worth sharing.

So, I turned everything I've learned from doing this into The Co-Founder Content Split — a free guide for climate tech founding teams.

Here's what's inside:

• The 2 patterns that quietly kill co-founder content (and why both are fixable)
• A role-by-role breakdown of each founder's natural LinkedIn lens (with post ideas for CEOs, CTOs, and commercial leads in climate tech)
• The tagging rules: when it works, when it reads like PR
• A 5-question Content Lens Map to run each founder through
• An AI prompt that generates 10 post ideas per founder in under 5 minutes

Want it?

Get it for free here: https://lnkd.in/djm9ybbA

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The Battle

Ash Rathod

Roman Pikalenko 🇺🇦🦩

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The Battle

Ash Rathod

Roman Pikalenko 🇺🇦🦩

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Roman Pikalenko 🇺🇦🦩's LinkedIn Performance

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