Spotify’s Women @ Belonging Group and NYWICI Present: Personal Branding, Speed Networking & Cocktails
The warm NYC evening was perfect for a night out to accelerate your connections. NYWICI partnered with Spotify and Spotify’s Women @ Belonging Group to present an inspiring and dynamic evening featuring personal branding with Brandi Boatner, speed networking with Michael Melcher, and cocktails with a panoramic city view. This gathering brought together marketing and communications professionals eager to enhance their personal brand and networking skills. Brandi Boatner, NYWICI President-Elect, kicked off the event, whose high energy and passion for branding set the tone for an engaging session.
Brandi opened the event with a riveting discussion about personal branding. Her love for all things branding, communications, and marketing shone through as she shared her journey at IBM and the early stages of creating her branding workshop, ‘Branding with Brandi’. The message was clear: generic branding is boring. Through her presentation, she emphasized that everyone is a brand and must own it wholeheartedly.
A central theme of Brandi’s talk was understanding the foundational elements of your brand. She urged attendees to ponder four critical questions:
- What do you want to be known for?
- What differentiates your brand from others?
- Whom do you serve?
- What is your enduring idea?
Using Disney as an example, she illustrated how the brand can be known for imagination, stand out through a commitment to excellence in storytelling, serve the “kid at heart,” and encapsulate its essence in one word: innocence. This exercise clarified the importance of a strong brand identity and highlighted the necessity of living and loving your brand.
Brandi further stressed the importance of authenticity and consistency. Drawing a parallel to the iconic duo Clark Kent and Lois Lane, she asserted that you should remain true to your brand in all environments, whether at work or with family. This authenticity builds trust and fosters genuine connections.
The next speaker, Michael Melcher, an executive coach and author of “Your Invisible Network”, shared invaluable insights on networking and building relationships. Melcher’s perspective on relationships as a form of wealth was particularly enlightening. He explained that even if you start with nothing, you can build a valuable network that supports your growth and career transitions.
Melcher provided practical advice on cultivating a diverse relationship portfolio, which includes both weak and strong ties. He highlighted the power of weak ties—those casual, less-intimate acquaintances, colleagues, or even friends of friends who can introduce new opportunities and perspectives. Unlike strong ties, which often encourage the status quo, weak ties can foster change and growth.
Melcher also shared actionable steps for building and maintaining relationships, such as reaching out horizontally (across various fields/industries) and vertically (mentors and leaders) within your network, making small steps towards connections, and recognizing when others make bids to deepen relationships. His advice to reconnect with weak ties and bring them closer resonated with many attendees, reminding them that real growth often requires stepping out of their comfort zones.
The event culminated in a speed networking activity, where participants could apply Brandi and Michael’s insights. Over four rounds of networking, each lasting eight minutes, attendees engaged in meaningful conversations, fostering connections brand-to-brand.
The Personal Branding and Speed Networking event was a resounding success. Attendees left inspired and equipped with practical strategies to enhance their brands and relationships. Brandi Boatner’s branding expertise and Michael Melcher’s networking wisdom merged to provide a comprehensive toolkit for professionals, early career and experienced, striving to make their mark in the communications industry.
Thank you to all the NYWICI members and non-members for attending, to our phenomenal speakers, Brandi and Michael, for sharing their insights, and to Spotify for their partnership. Also, to all the NYWICI Board members in attendance, Laura Brusca, Emily Dindoffer, Lori Greene, Elina Kazan, Chelsea Orcutt, Erin Styles, Joanne Trout, and Maria Ungaro, thank you for your continued support. Keep up with NYWICI on LinkedIn for event photos and more!
