Brian Lischer

Ignyte

Everything you need to build a brand that’s impossible to ignore: Services, Training, Coaching

Founder & CEO

Entrepreneurs'​ Organization

Made learning fun again with educational programs that fueled growth for early-stage entrepreneurs (and tripled turnout in the process).

Board Member

BusinessOnLine

Supercharged growth for a host of brands with slightly unconventional (but wildly effective) strategies at a B2B digital marketing powerhouse.

Strategy Director

San Diego Instruments

Led a global neuroscience manufacturer out of the marketing dark ages, transforming print materials into future-proof digital assets that ignited business growth.

Marketing Director

Lischer Media

Ditched the rat race and went out on my own to help a range of clients achieve uncommon results with disruptive digital marketing strategies.

Marketing Consultant

Geary Interactive

Cut my teeth helping businesses navigate the wild west of early digital marketing, with search campaigns that minted internet gold.

Marketing Strategist

Follow me for daily tips on branding | Founder of Ignyte | Helping businesses grow with branding services, training & coaching

I studied in psychology in college, but being a shrink wasn’t for me.

So I became a marketer instead.

After a decade of working with nearly every type of business, I noticed a pattern…

Most of their problems weren't about marketing.

They were about positioning.

→ Slow growth
→ Hiring struggles
→ Price sensitivity
→ Investor skepticism
→ High customer churn
→ Low conversion rates
→ No real differentiation

Every single one of these stems from poor positioning.

Once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.

So, I made the leap from marketing to branding.

I interviewed at every branding agency I could find.

But they all said the same thing: "You don’t have the right experience." 

So, I said screw it—and started my own.

Since then, I’ve built that agency into a multi-million-dollar business, spoken to thousands about the power of branding, and written for publications like Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur. 

Here's what I've learned: 

A better business starts with better positioning.

And improving your positioning? It's easier than you think.

You don’t need a huge budget. 

You don't need an MBA.

You simply need the right framework—and a little guidance.

Want to position your business for growth?

Here’s how I can help:

𝟭. 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 & 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿.

Get actionable tips for building a better brand and deep dives on improving your positioning.

🔗 Subscribe → https://ignytebrands.com/better-branding

𝟮. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗰𝗸 𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝟭:𝟭 𝗰𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹

Gain the clarity you need to sharpen your positioning and move your brand forward—fast. Limited spots available.

🔗 Schedule → https://www.ignytebrands.com/brand-coaching

𝟯. 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝘆 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆.

Find out how Ignyte can help you grow—whether you need a brand audit, a rebrand, or something in between.

🔗 Explore → https://ignytebrands.com

Everything you need to build a brand that’s impossible to ignore: 

• Brand Services
• Brand Training
• Brand Coaching

Behind the Facade

As both a charity CEO and visual storyteller, I bring a unique perspective to documenting social change and community initiatives.

With extensive experience working across sectors - from grassroots charities to corporate ESG teams - I understand how to capture authentic moments that tell powerful stories. My background leading a multi-award-winning charity gives me firsthand insight into communicating impact effectively through visual media.

Photography and film are powerful tools for social change. I'd love to help you document your journey of making the world a better place.

Documentary Photographer, Filmmaker & Storytelling Consultant

Award-winning London-based digital film production company specialising in the production of documentaries and commissioned short films. Our first major documentary, My God, I'm Queer, won the award for Best TV Programme of 2021 and distributed by Film4 and Channel4 in the UK. 

Types of video we produce:
- Documentaries (Human Interest Stories)
- Videos for small and medium sized businesses. 
- Videos for social media and online

Director & Filmmaker

Naz and Matt Foundation

I lead a multi-award-winning charity that works to reduce the early causes of suicide and homelessness, and remove the barriers that prevent conservative parents from accepting their LGBTQI+ child.

Naz and Matt Foundation was set up in 2014 following the sad loss of my fiancé Naz, who took his own life two days after his deeply religious family confronted him about his sexuality.

Naz and Matt Foundation exists to empower and support LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex) individuals, their friends and family to work towards resolving challenges linked to sexuality or gender identity, particularly where religion is heavily influencing the situation.

We deliver front-line, grassroots support to both LGBTQI+ individuals and parents. We deliver films, books, talks and workshops about the dangers of religious & cultural homophobia to schools, colleges, universities, corporations, public sector and government. Our award-winning campaigns and film (My God, I’m Queer) and are designed to open closed hearts and minds through storytelling.  

Publishers of the LGBT+ illustrated children's book, Salim's Secret.

CEO & Founder

Bona Parle

Social impact platform for purpose-driven Creators and Influencers. As Creative Director I'm responsible for developing the brand, content and product design strategy, sourcing eco friendly partners, establishing relationships and designing new products.

CEO & Creative Director

Colour Grading London

Colour Grading London is a service that delivers Hollywood quality, cinematic colour to independent filmmakers, agencies, non-profits and corporate video teams. Our small, boutique colour grading studio is based in North London. 

We deliver high quality, beautifully rich, delicately powerful colour for Films, Video, TV Commercials, Corporate videos and Documentaries. 

Offering both colour correction and colour grading services, using the same Emmy award-winning tools used in many Hollywood blockbusters.

Senior Colourist

cxLoyalty

As a client-facing, Lead UX Consultant I was responsible for producing the Online Team's UX (User Experience) deliverables.  Key tasks included leading site mapping sessions, UX story card development, sitemap development, idea and mind mapping. My core deliverables were fully functional, interactive wireframes and prototypes produced using a range of tools including Axure, Sketch, Adobe XD and good old fashioned pen and paper. 

I introduced into the organisation "Video Prototyping" - a highly engaging process for producing video demos of new digital products long before UX, UI or even full requirements had been scoped out. This was highly effective at getting clients onside... and persuading our internationally diverse project teams to emotionally buy into the project from the beginning.  

Exceptional project delivery requires continuous, open dialogue at all levels with across the project from by team members. On a daily basis I worked very closely with the client, internal business teams, UI Designers, UI Developers, Project Managers and analysts. 

My main clients included RBS, NatWest, Ulster Bank, Barclays, 5th 3rd Bank (US), Lloyds.

Lead UX Consultant

University of Derby

Visiting Lecturer

JobPage

In January 2011 I started a new social enterprise called JobPage - the UK’s first crowd sourced jobs network designed to help young people under 25 find work and employment. Shortlisted for the Onrec "Technology Innovation Award” three years in a row, JobPage was proud to be the winner of the prestigious award in 2014, and featured on the cover of Recruiter magazine in December 2013 as one of the 'game changers' of the recruitment industry.

As the UK's first crowd sourced jobs network our technology powers both JobPage and Tech City Jobs - the leading job board for London's Silicon Roundabout and Tech City.

One of the core objectives of the project is to use technology to make a positive difference to the lives of young people, and give them a helping hand in starting their career.

JobPage is a crowd sourced social jobs network where the community helps each other find work. Jobs are contributed by the community, not just employers and agencies.

Founder and CEO (tech startup)

Recruitment Entrepreneur

Personally hired by James Caan (BBC Dragons' Den), one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs and investors, to help him launch his new company, Recruitment Entrepreneur, and brand five of his startups.  My brief as interim 'Head of Technology, Digital and Innovation' was to design and roll out a scalable digital recruitment platform that would allow the business to operate and expand quickly.

I had full responsibility for strategy, sourcing suppliers and negotiating contracts, plus devising and developing the company branding and websites for 5 new companies, sourcing and implementing a new cloud-based office software stack, setting up a cloud based VOIP phone system, procuring and launching a new best-in-class Recruitment CRM, and integrating a new marketing CRM with the public facing website. I reported directly to James Caan, and the company board and worked closely with senior stakeholders within the group.

Recruitment Entrepreneur is now one of the fastest growing new recruitment businesses in the UK, and the latest addition to James Caan's Hamilton Bradshaw portfolio - one of the world's top 30 recruitment businesses, with over 800 staff, 26 offices, and a turnover in excess of £350 million.

Head of Technology, Digital & Innovation - 6 month post (recruitment startup)

Affinion Group

After successfully delivering the MBNA Options loyalty and rewards website in my first three month contract, my consultancy company was contracted for a further 3.5 years to manage the build of several large scale consumer digital web projects for Barclays, Lloyds Bank, TSB, RBS, NatWest and American Express. I introduced an enterprise level UX process into the organisation to help improve quality and speed up delivery of the digital projects. I was responsible for recruiting and interviewing new staff members (contract and permanent) into the online team.

E-Commerce Consultant / UX Project Manager (Financial Services integration software company)

PageDo

In 2010 I co-founded (and fully coded) PageDo, a simple but very yet effective online tool for building landing pages for email and paid search campaigns.

Sponsored by the government's UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) organisation, we travelled to Austin, Texas to launch PageDo at the world famous SXSW (South by Southwest) technology festival. 

PageDo went on to win the prestigious Mini Seedcamp London competition and a was hand-picked as a TechCrunch Europa's awards finalist in the same year.

The innovative technology developed for PageDo evolved into the JobPage social recruiting platform.

Founder & CEO (tech startup)

In July 2014, I lost my fiancé to suicide after his religious family rejected him for being gay. That devastating moment taught me the true power of authentic storytelling and its ability to create real change.

Today, I'm on a mission to help 10,000 purpose-driven brands, charities, and funders transform their social impact from invisible to impossible to ignore.

THE CHALLENGE:
Many organisations with social impact, CSR and ESG initiatives struggle to document their impact. They worry about appearing self-promotional, lack time to capture their work, or rely on generic stock photos that fail to build trust with stakeholders.

What I've learned: documenting your impact isn't about vanity – it's about trust.

MY UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE:
• Social impact documentary photographer
• CEO of a multi-award-winning charity
• Brand development expert (helped a Dragon from Dragons' Den launch five businesses)
• Award-winning Channel 4 documentary filmmaker
• I'm part of the communities I serve

HOW I CAN HELP:

1. SOCIAL IMPACT PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO
Capture your CSR and ESG initiatives through powerful visual storytelling that centres on beneficiaries, not egos.
Message me "STORY"

2. STORYTELLING CONSULTANCY SERVICES
I'll work with you to implement the strategies from my storytelling formula directly into your organisation's website, social media, annual reports, or ESG and CSR communications.
Message me "CONSULT"

3. PURPOSE-DRIVEN PERSONAL BRAND COACHING
Transform your personal brand into a platform for change.
Message me "COACHING"

4. FREE SOCIAL IMPACT STORYTELLING FORMULA
My step-by-step framework for documenting impact with dignity.
Message me "FORMULA" to download

READY TO TRANSFORM HOW STAKEHOLDERS SEE YOUR IMPACT?
• Join my FREE personal branding mini-course: https://join.ogston.com/starter
• Follow me for social impact insights
• Download my free formula (DM "FORMULA")
• Message me for a brand strategy session

Let's make your mission impossible to ignore.

Featured in: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News, The Guardian, The Times

Matt Mahmood-Ogston 🌱

The algorithm just decided your story of saving 50 lives isn't worth sharing. Especially if you're a woman.

Experiments on LinkedIn recently proved what women had suspected all along.

Dorothy Dalton, Jane Evans, and Cindy Gallop tested the platform to see what would happen if men and women posted identical content at the same time.

In one test, two male participants with a combined ~9,400 followers posted the same content at the same time as two female participants with over 154,000 followers combined. 

The result? The men's posts achieved significantly more reach despite having 16 times fewer followers.

Same content. Same timing. Different gender.

Why is this important?

Algorithms have been with us for some time. But with the sudden rise of AI, the risks are now even bigger. And it's silencing the voices that need to change the world.

Research shows women's jobs are three times more likely to be automated by AI than men's. But the algorithm is also suppressing women's ability to tell the stories that prove their work matters.

For charity leaders and social impact organisations, this isn't just unfair. It's existential.

The machine learned what "valuable content" looks like from historical data. That data reflects a world where male-dominated topics like tech and finance were prioritised.

Where "agentic" language like "driven" and "strategic" signalled authority. Where linear careers without breaks were the standard.

The algorithm hasn't learned the value of what "care" means yet. Or the real meaning of "community". Or the messy, non-linear path of someone who took time off to raise children or support ageing parents.

It learned to suppress exactly the voices that social impact needs most.

Key lessons to learn

This isn't about LinkedIn being evil. It's about proxy bias - when neutral-seeming systems produce discriminatory outcomes.

Does the algorithm penalise:
- Impact topics over business topics
- Emotional storytelling over corporate speak
- Career breaks over uninterrupted trajectories

For women leading charities, this creates a vicious cycle. Your stories won't reach funders. Your impact doesn't get seen. Your organisation struggles to prove its value. You lose funding. You lose influence. The work suffers.

When AI suppresses women's voices in social impact, it literally suppresses stories of change.

Actions you can take

- Engage daily with posts from your connections.

- Send DMs daily to your closest peers.

- Then document your reach. Track which posts perform and which don't.

If you see patterns, you're not imagining it.

Then tell the story anyway. Use every channel. Email your supporters directly. Share in communities. Don't let an algorithm decide whose impact matters.

The stories that change the world can't afford to be algorithmically silenced. We need to talk about it, to break free.

Matt Mahmood-Ogston

Award-Winning Impact Storyteller & Social Impact Photographer | Helping 400+ Charity & Comms Leaders Create Authentic Stories that Build Trust, Impact and Funding | Charity CEO, Naz & Matt Foundation

What is Proxy Bias?

AI doesn't just ignore your 'care work'.
It's been trained to see it as worthless.
Let me explain

Large-scale analyses of tens of thousands of job descriptions show 60-75% of ads use predominantly agentic, male-coded language (competitive, driven, strategic), while only 20-35% use communal language (supportive, caring, nurturing)

Studies from MIT, Stanford, LinkedIn and Textio confirm that AI systems trained on this data reproduce the same pattern.

The machine learned that care has less value

Why is this important?

If you lead an org focused on safeguarding, mental health or community, your content is being systematically downgraded.

Not because it lacks quality. Because the algorithm was trained on decades of data that prioritised male-dominated industries like tech and finance over care work.

Jazz Gandhi shared with me how Safiya Noble's book, "Algorithms of Oppression", exposed how search engines privilege whiteness and marginalise women through commercial incentives.

Search engines prioritised what was profitable, not what's fair. Social algorithms inherited the same logic?

When you write about empathy - algorithm sees low commercial value. When you share stories about community care, it predicts low engagement. When you discuss safeguarding vulnerable people, the system deprioritises it.

Proxy bias in action

AI uses seemingly neutral variables like word choice, content topics, and career gaps to create discriminatory outcomes. It doesn't need to know your gender. It needs to recognise the language patterns associated with care work.

The system thinks "care" is a distraction and "growth" is the real work.

Key lessons to learn

"Care work" content is less likely to generate rapid, high-volume engagement. Instead, it generates reflection. Empathy. Slower, deeper connection. But algorithms reward speed and volume, not depth.

Algorithms penalise slow engagement. A post that sparks conversation over days gets buried because the velocity isn't there in the first hour.

For charity leaders, this creates a difficult choice: write authentically about your impact and get suppressed, or adopt corporate language that betrays your mission.

The solution isn't one or the other.
It's both.

Actions you can take

Test your own content. Take a post about care work and rewrite it using agentic language. Post both versions at different times. Track the reach difference. Document and share what you find.

The algorithm won't change until we force the conversation. Share your data. Tag me in. Make the bias visible. Demand better.

And something else is happening that we need to talk about.

Many women are changing their gender on LinkedIn to male to see if it improves their reach.

Running experiments because there's evidence the platform itself treats them differently. Not just their content. Them.

That's how broken this is.

Thank you Dorothy Dalton, Jane Evans & Cindy Gallop and the many other women who have done the prior work in this area.

Award-Winning Impact Storyteller & Photographer | Social Impact Photography, Workshops & Animated Photo Stories that Inspire Action, Win Funding, Prove Outcomes | Helping Charities & Social Impact Teams | Charity CEO

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Brian Lischer

Matt Mahmood-Ogston 🌱

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The Battle

Brian Lischer

Matt Mahmood-Ogston 🌱

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Matt Mahmood-Ogston 🌱's LinkedIn Performance

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