How we helped Plug and Play turn an executive into an industry thought leader — generating 219,000 impressions, 11 podcast & event invites, and direct inbound leads

The challenge

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Plug and Play is one of the world’s largest innovation platforms, connecting corporations with startups and emerging technologies.

When they came to Kurogo, the objective wasn’t simply to generate more LinkedIn impressions.

We were working with four senior executives simultaneously, and needed to solve two challenges at once:

Build greater awareness and authority for Plug and Play as an organisation.

But do it through four distinct personal brands, rather than creating four executives who all sounded like different versions of the company page.

The long-term objective was to establish all four executives as recognised thought leaders within their respective niches, increase visibility for Plug and Play and ultimately generate high-quality inbound opportunities for the business.

For Sobhan Khani, that meant owning a specific territory: innovation.
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The strategy

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Sobhan already had the substance.

He had spent 11 years at Plug and Play, watching the company grow from around 20 employees into a global innovation platform. He had led its Smart City division across four international locations, built strategic partnerships and worked with major brands including Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley, BNP Paribas and Walmart.

The problem was turning that experience into a clear, differentiated personal brand.

Our positioning focused on Sobhan as the bridge between emerging technology and enterprise adoption — helping Fortune 500 innovation leaders understand how startup-corporate partnerships can help them modernise, reduce risk and capture new opportunities.

Rather than talking generically about innovation, we built his perspective around what he had actually seen across different industries and geographies.

His central point of view was that innovation is cyclical. Sustainable innovation doesn't come from blindly chasing whatever technology happens to be fashionable. It comes from building value-driven partnerships and systems capable of turning new technology into tangible business outcomes.

This gave Sobhan something much more valuable than a collection of LinkedIn topics.

It gave him a recognisable perspective.
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Building thought leadership without losing commercial relevance

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The audience was deliberately narrow.

We focused on Heads of Innovation, CIOs, CTOs, CVC executives and investment leaders, particularly within Fortune 500 companies and large enterprises across the US and EMEA.

These weren't people looking for generic inspiration.

They were dealing with legacy systems, technological disruption, slow innovation processes and the difficulty of adopting emerging technology without introducing unnecessary risk.

So we structured Sobhan's content around three pillars:

• Innovation Ecosystem & the Future of Innovation
• Results & Impact Stories
• Personal Journey & Interests

We then applied our Growth, Authority, Conversion model.

40% of the strategy focused on growth — using innovation trends and broader career thought leadership to introduce Sobhan to new audiences.

40% focused on authority — sharing industry insights, successes and lessons that demonstrated why he had earned the right to talk about innovation.

The remaining 20% focused on conversion — using Plug and Play projects and personal stories to connect the ideas Sobhan discussed with the work the company actually does.

That meant we weren't constantly asking the audience to become a lead.

We focused on making Sobhan someone the right people wanted to hear from.
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The results

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Across just 46 posts, Sobhan generated:

• 219,000+ impressions
• 4,700+ average impressions per post
• 11 podcast and event invitations
• Direct inbound leads for Plug and Play

The most important result wasn't simply the reach.

It was what that reach translated into.

Podcast and event organisers started inviting Sobhan to share his expertise. Prospective clients began reaching out. His LinkedIn presence became another channel through which Plug and Play could demonstrate its expertise to the market.

That's exactly what the strategy was designed to achieve.

Not mass-market virality.

Quality attention from the people who matter.

Sobhan's campaign shows what executive thought leadership can look like when the personal brand and corporate brand work together.

Plug and Play gained another channel for building credibility and generating opportunities.

Sobhan built a distinct reputation around his own experience, geography and perspective on innovation.

And instead of the four executives competing for the same territory or repeating the same company messaging, each could become known for something different — while collectively strengthening the Plug and Play brand.

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