FAQ

VERA brings your experts into classic strategic communication. Their expert reputation builds trust in your company and strengthens your business development and your employer brand, in the market where you are already known and in the markets you are about to enter.

The work combines communication strategy with legal precision, so every person who becomes visible does it within clear limits, in the language of your industry.

When artificial intelligence can produce content in seconds, the result is saturation and a growing lack of trust. People look for someone they can meet in person, name and verify. A real expert with visible, verifiable work becomes a signal of trust, for clients and for AI tools, which also look for signals of credibility.

Personal branding usually describes how a person presents themselves, often on social media. An expert brand rests on what a person knows and does in their field, and expert reputation is its next stage: how that person is known in their industry and how much clients, colleagues and candidates trust them. That reputation is earned in the work itself, on committees, at closed industry events and in the conversations where decisions are made. Part of it is online and offline communication, which must be strategic and suited to the industry.

At VERA we build this reputation for the experts inside a company and place it within the company’s communication strategy, so that it creates trust in the company as a whole.

VERA works with companies that want to involve their experts in communication and with CEOs who want to become the name the market recognises. Both paths are described under “Work with VERA”.

Working with companies and CEOs begins with the VERA Workshop for your industry.

The duration depends on the path. The VERA Workshop takes one day, with preparation in which we study your industry. The CEO programme runs for one year. Working together in the Fractional CMO role begins with a set-up phase that usually takes three to four months, after which you choose the pace of further work yourself, until your team takes over the communication.

Yes, if you have an internal team, we can help align them and make them part of the process. If you already work with an external agency, this is usually difficult in practice, because agencies bring their own fixed systems, which do not fit our flexible, tailored approach.

VERA is based in Vienna and works with clients across Europe, in English, German, Bosnian and Slovenian. For companies entering a new market, we build a complete communication strategy connected to the one at home.

The two-minute self-check asks a few questions about your situation and shows a path of VERA services that fits it. Take the self-check.

A Fractional CMO is a Chief Marketing Officer who works with your business on a part-time or flexible basis, without the cost and commitment of a full-time hire.

Instead of being employed full-time, a Fractional CMO steps into your organisation as a senior strategic partner, takes full responsibility for your communication and marketing direction, and adapts their involvement to what your business actually needs right now.

This model makes sense when your business has outgrown basic marketing but is not yet ready or does not need a full-time CMO. You get senior strategic thinking, real accountability and a clear direction, without the fixed overhead.

At VERA, the Fractional CMO role goes one step further. Dženeta Schitton steps directly into your management structure, manages your internal team and implements a proprietary communication model that puts your people and their expert reputation at the centre of your communication strategy.

An agency runs campaigns, usually within its own system. A full-time CMO is a permanent employee. A Fractional CMO takes on the strategic role for a defined period and, together with your people (if you already have, say, a social media manager) or our external partners (trusted freelancers), builds the system and then hands it over for day-to-day operation. VERA remains an adviser to the extent needed.

A Fractional CMO takes on the entire communication role for a defined period. This means we start from the beginning: we define the business goals and on that basis decide what we want to communicate and how, and with the VERA Communication Model we also decide how to position experts within the strategic communication and connect communication at the personal level with the company's communication.

If your company already has a marketing team and an established communication strategy, the Fractional CMO role focuses only on positioning experts within that strategy, to strategically increase its effect. As part of bringing experts into the communication, we train the internal communication team to do this successfully without VERA, and we of course remain available for consulting.

Every engagement starts with a workshop. Beforehand, we study your industry and how its experts are positioned in communication today. At the workshop you learn how the VERA Communication Model can be applied in your company, and afterwards you receive communication guidelines for the whole company, tailored to your industry.

Yes. VERA builds the expert reputation of the people who carry the company: top management, middle management and individual experts, which is broader than personal branding in the sense of online communication and self-presentation. In the VERA Communication Model we help experts build and communicate their expert reputation, which then becomes part of the company's strategic communication.

For individual executives and experts there is also one-to-one (1:1) expert reputation coaching.

LinkedIn is one of several channels, and in many industries far from the most important. An expert's standing is earned through work in the profession, by taking part in industry events, on committees and in conversations with clients, and the online presence records this afterwards, in the industry's language.

Corporate influencer programmes usually train employees to post more often. We focus on middle and top management, start from the company's business goals and choose the experts whose knowledge is closest to those goals. For each of them we define a role that fits what they already do. Visibility then grows out of substance, to the degree that suits the person and the industry.

Candidates also choose an employer by what they expect to gain and how they will be able to develop. When a company visibly invests in its experts and they become known in their field, candidates notice that investment straight away.

A strong expert reputation also gives candidates access to experts they can get to know through their communication and activities before the first job interview, which makes the employer brand concrete and credible.

Experts in whom a company visibly invests have fewer reasons to leave, because they get the development they are looking for right there. The reputation they build is tied to the company: to its clients, projects and topics. The guidelines and the communication model stay with the company when someone leaves, and trust does not depend on one person, because several people carry it. When experts remain invisible, the company loses the chance to turn their knowledge into trust in its own name.

As a rule, employees in Austria, as in Germany, cannot be obliged to use their private profiles for company purposes. That is why we rely on voluntary participation and clear guidelines, drawn up with careful regard for employment and data protection law. Where a works council (Betriebsrat) exists, it has a right to take part in deciding on such guidelines. Employees who publish content about their work should also have guidelines for doing so.

The guidelines settle this in advance: what belongs to the person, such as their profile and network, and what belongs to the company, such as confidential information and company accounts. Clear rules from the start protect both sides.

The workshop and the first steps put the first experts in their places within the first months. The reputation that brings clients and candidates grows over a longer time, which is why our engagements usually last a year or longer.

CEO branding is the common term for building the public profile of a company's CEO. We build it as expert reputation, so that the CEO becomes known for real expertise in the industry and that trust carries over to the company. It begins with the VERA Workshop, followed by the one-year CEO programme. More about expert reputation for CEOs.

People trust people they can name and meet. When you are known as CEO for real expertise, your company becomes more recognisable, new business opportunities open up, and clients, partners and employees get to know your view of the business and the industry.

VERA in Vienna works with CEOs of new and established companies. The work begins with a positioning workshop and continues with a one-year CEO programme, together with your communication team. It can also include VERA PORTRAIT, a starter package for your public positioning with photography, video and styling.

The CEO programme runs for one year. We create the content together, with coaching and support for you, alongside your communication team, so that you can continue the work after the programme ends. VERA remains available for consulting.

That depends on your industry and the goals we set together. It is always best when the ideas come from you and are presented in a way that is authentic to you, which we assess by your personality type: whether it makes more sense to write, to speak publicly in the media, on your own channels and so on. Your views and experience matter most, and everything else is adapted to each individual case. At the start of the programme you should allow more time, which is then gradually freed up as we get to know you and your company better.

Visibility does not have to be loud. In conservative industries, reputation grows in committees, at closed industry events and in professional publications, and the online presence follows in the language of the industry. The workshop shows what fits yours.

A personal expert reputation and brand belong to that person alone. The fact that the company invests in building it gives the company no rights over the benefits it brings. All content the CEO creates within the programme, however, remains the company's property. The guidelines that result from this one-year collaboration address this question and give clear instructions.

LinkedIn is only one channel among several. In the programme, we decide what you publish, how and where, based on how your industry communicates and on your business goals.

Every market entry begins with knowing the market: who already builds trust there, through which channels and by which unwritten rules of the industry. On that basis we build a complete communication strategy for the new market, connected to the one you already have at home. Like every engagement with VERA, it starts with a workshop and an analysis of your industry in the target market.

A market entry strategy includes a complete communication strategy for the target market, built together with your marketing team at home. We first analyse how your industry communicates in that market in general and what a classic communication strategy there has to contain. On that basis we also position your experts within the strategy, taking into account the cultural and legal framework of the target country.

Companies entering a new market usually meet three barriers. The first is missing trust, because nobody knows your company or your people there yet, and every industry follows unwritten rules that differ from country to country. The second is cultural prejudice, which depends on the country a company comes from and has to be broken, although the image of the country of origin can also be an advantage. Whether that image is good or bad, the strategy defines how it is carried into practice through your people and through classic communication. The third lies in classic communication itself, which has to match the cultural differences of customers, especially in B2C, from tone and imagery to values and buying habits. Experts who are known in the right circles, together with classic communication adapted to the new market, lower these barriers faster than advertising alone.

At home, reputation has grown over years through relationships, recommendations and shared history, often without a written strategy. In a new market these relationships do not exist yet, and they will not grow by themselves at the speed a market entry requires. In addition, a company arrives in a new market together with the image of its country of origin, often accompanied by cultural prejudices that a reputation earned at home cannot break on its own. That is why the new market needs a deliberate strategy from the first day, while the home market can keep growing the way it always has.

The company, its values and its experts stay the same, so the new strategy builds on what already works at home and adapts the message, channels and tone to the new market. Where a strategy for the target market already exists, we take it over and adapt it. In this way both markets strengthen each other, and the reputation built at home becomes a reference in the new one.

In a new market, people first trust people they can name and meet, and only then a brand. Your experts are therefore often the first point of contact: at industry events, in professional associations and in conversations with future clients and partners. For each of them we define which topics they speak about and where, so that their reputation opens doors for the company.

Companies from Bosnia and Herzegovina often bring strong expertise, and in Austria and Germany they are judged first by trust, reliability and the way they communicate. VERA works from Vienna in Bosnian, German and English and knows both business cultures from the inside. We build the communication strategy for the target market and position your experts so that they are recognised there for what they know.

Austrian business culture values reliability, discretion and personal relationships, and trust is built slowly, through people and over time. It helps to be present where your industry meets: at professional events, in associations and in specialist media, with experts who speak the language of the industry. VERA is based in Vienna and builds this presence with you from the first contacts onwards.

Opening a company in Austria is a legal and administrative step, and for it we refer you to trusted partners: lawyers, tax advisors and the Austrian Business Agency (ABA), the national agency that advises foreign companies settling in Austria. VERA takes over what comes next: how your company becomes known and trusted in the Austrian market. Dženeta Schitton's background in law makes close coordination with your legal advisors easier.