We build personal brands for Black/Diverse Founders and CEOs 🗣 | CEO & Founder of OSSAI

I’m Phil, the lad behind the scenes helping people like Jake Humphrey, Spencer Matthews, Mary Earps and Ferne McCann show up online in a way that actually sounds like them.

I’ve spent more all-nighters than I care to admit helping founders and public figures build personal brands that turn heads, start conversations, and lead to real opportunities.

Most of my work is being a translator: pulling the real insight out of someone’s head, shaping it into content, and building a system that keeps it consistent.

That means:

clarifying your message and positioning

turning your lived experience into posts people want to read and share

building a simple content engine you can actually stick to

I’m also funnelling everything we’ve learned at OSSAI into Pesora, an autonomous personal-branding tool built to give more people access to proven strategy without the full agency price tag.

If you’re a founder, CEO or creator with a spicy brain and a head full of ideas, but you’re struggling to get it out consistently, drop me a message. ✌🏿

Phil Ossai

Yesterday marked 4 years of OSSAI 🥳

I took this photo last night at Christina Taylor’s office while my little one was in dance upstairs at The ASH Company and it hit me... wow I've been in business for nearly half a decade. 

I'm old 😅 but equally I feel like I started yesterday.

I still remember 4th March 2022... full of naivety. Pre-Chat GPT days. Back before the AI slop. 

A LOT has changed since then... but a lot hasn't.

Here are 4 lessons that have stood the test of time.

1 - Human psychology doesn't change: curiosity, negative bias is a powerful vehicle to capture one's attention.

2 - Quality > quantity of followers. Don't get attention mixed up with intention. You can get leads at 500 followers, and nothing at 500,000 followers.

3 - On the other hand, if you want community growth, cross-pollinate your audience with related creators/founders. Collab carousels, collab Vids/TikToks/Reels... they are SO powerful.

4 - The science of social media growth and virality is: A/B testing every element of a piece of content, and with enough variants, the data will tell you exactly what you need to do to grow. It's not rocket science... but it is a lot of effort.

Thank you to all those who supported and believed in the vision before it was a reality. 

Amy Stephenson-Yankuba Aaron Burns Milimo Banji Mary Earps MBE Ellis Bennett FCCA Yafet Semere Jade Beard-Stevens Jim Meadows Indiana Julian Keenan Bettany Lyle Yorks Jake Humphrey Jane Hunt Robyn Liddell Claire Richards Nazia Haque Netta Jenkins sorry if I forgot to tag anyone!

Andrew Hulbert FIWFM thanks for the inspo on this!

Personal Branding for CEOs, Founders and Talent Brands via OSSAI Agency & Pesora AI

Your personal brand is your insurance policy.

I started OSSAI when I was in my very early 20s.

The fact that I’m able to sit in rooms with people who have scaled seven and eight figure companies, have 10 and 100s millions in the bank, while still in my 20s…

Plus I have access while their guard is down, while they’re vulnerable, while they’re open to hearing new ideas, and to have them trust my expertise, is an anomaly that I’m very aware of and very grateful for. 

I don’t say that to brag.

I say it to make this point:

The only way I was able to get into those rooms was because of the insurance policy I’d been slowly contributing to day in, day out, week by week, month by month, which is my personal brand.

My reputation tends to do a lot of talking.

I recently had a massive community reach out to me to do workshops for them.

The same goes for another speaking gig across borders.

That’s why I believe your personal brand opens doors, but also protects you when things don’t go so well.

If you’re let go.

If you’re struggling.

If things are tough.

I’ve had many bailouts from people in my network that I grew through LinkedIn, through Instagram, through TikTok, who supported me during tough times in the agency as a result of us meeting online.

If I hadn’t posted that content, I probably wouldn’t be where I am.

So yeah, your personal brand is your insurance policy.

🤞🏿

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Back from a London day trip to meet the man of the hour Jake Humphrey

If you were a fly on the wall, here's what you would've heard:

🗣️ "Business growth is expensive: Financially, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Consistency growth beats intensity any day of the week."

🗣️ "The view at the top of the mountain is the same as the bottom of the mountain: Another set of peaks on the horizon. There's always another goal so learn to detach your joy from the outcome and place it in the process."

A few things it got me thinking...

There's a unique energy being around non-Londoners. People who are supposedly disadvantaged when they don't live in the capital. The drive is built differently when opportunity isn't always on your doorstep.

My generation places such an importance on stupid stuff: revenue rather than profit, the badge of your car rather than character... and when you hear successful people speak the ego in you can think: 'it's easy for you to say now you've achieved it'.

But the challenge I'm setting myself is to actually try and adopt a wiser mindset this year.

I really shouldn't upgrade my car, or my living expenses... 
I need to keep my head down and act like it's nil-nil
I need to enjoy the journey more because this is the real game I'm playing now, not pre-season.

Anyway... back to work.

Don't get attention mixed up with intention.

The loudest personal brands don't always make the best content.

The founders with the largest followers don't always have the best businesses.

I have a United Fan page with 300k IG followers and a TikTok of 175k followers.

My '17k' LinkedIn following has 'made me more money' than that 475k following ever has.

A 300w light bulb can light up a room

A 300w laser can cut through steel.

Same energy, different focus.

Happy new month everyone 🚀

The Consistency blueprint: My 90-day goal-setting journal from the 🐐 Aaron Burns

What’s common knowledge to you…

… is a game changer to someone else. 

You’re sitting on a goldmine of insights, experiences and lessons. 

All you’re missing is the framework to structure your thoughts. 

💪🏿

Most employer brands sound like they were written by a committee.
That’s the problem.

We started HIYA after seeing how disconnected recruitment marketing had become from the people it’s meant to attract. This is especially true for Gen Z and digital native talent, who can spot inauthenticity instantly.

At HIYA, we help organisations build employer brands and recruitment marketing that actually speak human. No buzzwords. No filler. No “we’re like a family.”

Just honest, social first storytelling that reflects real culture and helps the right people see themselves in your organisation.

My work sits across employer branding, recruitment marketing, and community led talent attraction. I’m particularly interested in how social platforms and real voices can cut through hiring noise and build genuine trust with talent.

Alongside building HIYA, I’m a One Young World Ambassador and a strong advocate for representation, inclusion, and building workplaces people genuinely want to be part of.

If you’re trying to attract Gen Z talent, refresh a tired employer brand, or make recruitment marketing feel less corporate, we should probably talk.

Dereck Maruma

Purely online influencer marketing for employer brands is dying (which is a shame because everyone’s just getting the hang of it). 

Here’s what’s replacing it.

The old playbook: find an influencer, brief them, boost the post, measure impressions. Job done.

The problem? You’re borrowing an audience you’ll never own. The post gets 48 hours of life, the algorithm buries it, and the candidate moves on having felt absolutely nothing about your brand.

Reach without resonance is just noise.

The data backs this up. 80% of people now say in-person events are their most trusted marketing channel (Freeman, 2024). 77% say their trust in a brand increased significantly after a live interaction. You don’t get numbers like that from a scroll.

The shift happening right now in the smartest employer brand teams isn’t about ditching influencers, it’s about changing how they’re deployed.

Because think about it: graduate candidates are making one of the biggest decisions of their lives. They’re not doing it because they saw a sponsored post. They’re doing it because they felt something. They talked to someone real. They left a room thinking “I could actually see myself there.”

That’s the shift. From borrowed reach to earned memory.

Stop briefing them to post. Start building something worth posting about.

Bring them into a real experience with your brand. Let the content come from inside the room, not from a brief sent over email. 

That organic post, created in the moment, unscripted. 

Carries more weight than anything produced to a specification. 

Then if you amplify it with paid, you’re not manufacturing credibility. You’re extending it.

The formula that actually works:
In-person experience → organic content from inside it → paid amplification of something real

This is exactly how the team approached the work with Kennie and Deutsche Bank alongside AMS. 

Instead of asking her to create content about them as a one off Kennie partnered with DB over the course of a few months regularly providing value to her audience and developing real brand affinity. We gave her audience a reason to show up. The content came naturally. The trust transferred. And the candidates who were in that room left with a completely different relationship to that brand than any sponsored post could have created.

Paid media fades. A room full of people who felt something? That compounds.

If you’re an employer brand team still leading with post-and-boost, it might be time to ask: are you creating reach, or are you creating memory?

My first job out of university was selling personalised number plates.

I turned up on day one in a full suit and my fanciest tie. Because the contract said “smart casual” and no one had told me what that actually meant.

I was surrounded by colleagues in jeans. One of them asked if I had a court date.

It wasn’t the graduate career I’d imagined. But that job,that awkward, unexpected, slightly humbling job, Shaped how I deal with pressure, how I listen, and how I connect with people in ways I still draw on today and I now also do this thing where I can’t go past a personalised plate without taking a picture… weird I know


Here’s what I wish someone had told me back then:

Your story isn’t behind you. It’s being written right now.
That gap year, the part-time job you think doesn’t count, the degree that feels irrelevant, the career change you haven’t told anyone about yet , none of it is wasted. 

All of it is data. 
All of it is you.

The problem isn’t that your path looks different to everyone else’s. The problem is you’ve been taught to apologise for it.

Stop.

The candidates who stand out aren’t the ones with the most linear CVs. They’re the ones who can look at their own journey, all of it, including the weird parts and say: this is what I’ve learned, this is what I bring, and this is where I’m going.

That’s not arrogance. That’s clarity. And clarity is magnetic.

So this National Careers Week, before you refresh your job boards or tweak your CV for the hundredth time, sit with your story for a moment.

What have you actually done? What did it teach you? What does it say about who you are?

Because the right employer isn’t looking for a perfect path. They’re looking for a real person.

I bet you didn’t know I was going to find a way to weave national careers week into this😂😂

Here is said first day suit. I am still a fan of the tie though

I know we've technically been around for a few months. But today feels different. Today feels real.

We've had clients. We've invoiced. We've delivered work for Lidl GB, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and Persimmon Homes. 

We've built something with real legs.

But I don't think I've ever properly stood up and said: this is HIYA, this is why we exist, and this is what we're going to do to this industry.

So here it is.

We started HIYA because employer branding is broken.

Most employer brands look the same. Same stock photography. Same "we're like a family" messaging. Recruitment has been built for organisations, not people, full of buzzwords, transactional at every stage, and completely disconnected from the next generation it's supposed to attract.

We're eight people who worked together for five years and kept watching brilliant companies say nothing interesting about what it's actually like to work for them. So we broke away to do something about it.

We built the HIYA Talent Loop: a six-stage model that treats every single moment of the talent journey as an employer brand moment. 

Not just the job ad. 
But the application experience. 
The rejection email. 
Day one. 
The long-term feeling of actually belonging somewhere. 

We go from first impression to lifelong advocate, and we build the loop so it compounds.

We're social-first, culture-led, and designed to reach talent before they're even looking. We also have access to one of the largest student databases in the country, meaning we can build pipelines before the pipeline exists.

Most importantly: our team is the diverse, next-generation talent our clients are trying to reach. We understand that talent because we are that talent.

We're not here to sell one-off campaigns. We're here to build something that lasts.

If you're a talent leader who wants to stop blending in, let's talk.

Forget what you knew, its time to say HIYA. to something new. 👋


#EmployerBranding #RecruitmentMarketing #TalentAcquisition #HIYA #TalentLoop #DiverseTalent #FutureOfWork

This too shall pass.

I keep telling myself that this week.

Honestly? It's been a rough one. A deal that fell through. A invoice issue I didn't see coming. Nights where I couldn't switch my brain off no matter how hard I tried.

And in those moments, the self-doubt creeps in. You start wondering if you're cut out for this. If you missed something obvious. If things are about to unravel.

I don't think I'm alone in that feeling.

So I want to ask the founders and leaders who've been through the dark weeks:
How do you actually get through them?

Not the polished version of the answer. The honest one.

Do you push through? Step away and reset? Lean on someone? Let yourself feel it and keep going anyway?

We celebrate the wins loudly. But the hard weeks are where so much of the real growth happens and I think we should talk about those more.

Drop your answer in the comments. Someone reading this right now needs to hear it. 

For me? I get the boots back on and reignite my ambition to play at the world cup 🤣

Something has been sitting with me for a while and I think it's time to do something about it.

There are so many brilliant talent acquisition and employer branding professionals out of work right now. People who are genuinely skilled, experienced, and passionate about what they do. And yet the job market is brutal.

So we're doing something about it.

HIYA. is running a free, four-week live programme for TA and EB professionals who are currently between roles and want to go deeper on social media to give themselves an edge in their next role.

Not a LinkedIn tips course. Not a "polish your CV" workshop. Not heres what we do now go tell people about it.

We're sharing what we actually know about using social media in talent acquisition and employer branding. The frameworks we use with clients. The content strategies that work. How to build employee advocacy. How to measure what matters. The real stuff, from practitioners who do this every day.

Because the best thing we can do for people right now isn't sympathy. It's knowledge they can walk into an interview with and use from day one in their next role.

The first cohort is free. Small group. Live sessions. Starting soon.

If you're currently out of work in TA or EB and want to get more confident using social as a real tool in your work, drop a comment or send me a DM and I'll send you the details.

And if you know someone who would benefit from this, please share it.

taplio

The Battle

Phil Ossai

Dereck Maruma

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taplio

The Battle

Phil Ossai

Dereck Maruma

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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);}Phil Ossai's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScorePhil Ossai's LinkedIn Performance