#32 - Barney O'Kelly
Barney O’Kelly leads product and solutions marketing at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm with thousands of employees and billions in revenue. Inside a firm like that, getting executives to show up on LinkedIn isn’t easy, but Barney has been a lone evangelist for this motion, helping hesitant leaders get out there, share their thinking, and build real relationships. He tells us all about how he introduced executive-led content internally, the resistance he faced, and how he reframed “personal brand” into something that actually resonated: be seen and make friends. He tells us all about the psychology behind why executives hesitate to post, how to get past the “I’m not interesting” hurdle, why engagement metrics are often misleading, and how this motion actually drives real conversations, relationships, and revenue. It’s a practical look at how executive presence can work inside a large, legacy firm, and what it actually takes to make it stick.
.jpg)
Hey all,
This week I sat down with Barney O'Kelly, Head of Solutions & Product Marketing at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm that works with some of the largest companies in the world.
Barney’s been leading a team of executives at AlixPartners to start posting on LinkedIn and, in the process, learned what’s really keeping smart people from sharing their ideas. It’s not strategic, tactical, or platform-specific; it’s psychological, and his solution is surprisingly simple.
Obstacle #1: Framing
After Barney saw some success in his own LinkedIn posts, he was tapped to teach the AlixPartners team how to post effectively on LinkedIn.
The goal was simple: get more people in the company posting regularly.
He started leading sessions about building a personal brand and, while his team smiled and nodded, nobody started posting. He tried framing the sessions as “building your marketing presence,” and they still didn’t budge.
When he talked to his team, he realized the barrier was in the framing, not in the ask. Something about building a personal brand felt cold, like they were being asked to perform for an audience rather than build real relationships. It didn’t fit with the culture of AlixPartners, and team members struggled to get inspired.
Obstacle #2: Content
Eventually, Barney got some team members open to the idea of posting, but it wasn’t long before they hit another wall. Barney calls this one the biggest challenge he deals with to-date as the leader of this motion.
Smart, interesting people are terrible at trusting their own ideas. Barney calls this problem the “curse of the intelligent overthinker.”
Credible leaders hold their ideas and their writing to a standard nothing clears, which makes the act of posting content feel impossible.
"Lots of people struggle to get over the 'I'm not interesting and I have nothing to say' hurdle, which is nonsense. Everybody's interesting and everybody has something to say."
The solve
Between the rigidity of “personal branding,” and the vulnerability of putting ideas out there, Barney knew he needed to create an easier way for his team to get comfortable with posting.
He kept adjusting the language until he landed on something that stuck:
Be seen, make friends.
Be seen
The first objective of Barney’s framework is to be seen by people.
Not by a million people.
Not by a particular type of person.
Just to have your content seen by someone, anyone, on the platform.
The breadth of this intention lowered the stakes of the ask significantly. He didn’t need his team to craft a 10-page strategy and spend 4 hours a day writing. He just wanted people to share their ideas in whatever way felt natural to them.
Make friends
The second part of the framework is to make relationships.
Not to convert a client.
Not to have a slimy, awkward DM conversation with a certain number of ICPs.
Just to find some cool conversation on LinkedIn.
This shifted the orientation away from broadcasting ideas and toward other people, which is a lot more aligned with AlixPartners’ way of working.
“Be seen and make friends” lowered the mental bar to the idea of posting regularly. And, as simple as the phrase seems, the idea isn’t fluffy.
Barney pointed out that finding new people and building relationships with them has always been at the core of sales and marketing.
Great marketers and sales folks have relationships with clients that often look like friendships: they pick up the phone when a client is having a crisis, they give things away generously, and both sides work to make the others’ lives easier.
As Barney put it:
"By any definition, the best business relationships become friendships. If you keep it arm's length, a connection or part of my network, that feels transactional. That to me feels cynical."
So how do you measure it?
If you’re Barney, you don’t.
He’s openly skeptical of the idea that you can measure relationships with a bar chart.
"There is a marketing culture that is being led by the data the platforms create rather than a marketing culture that has been led by what is ostensibly good marketing.”
He’s not terribly interested in impressions or engagement numbers.What he actually pays attention to are the stories.
A colleague from years ago reaching out. A client who mentions at dinner they've been following along. Conversions he knows came from the motion but couldn't trace to a single post.
Whether or not you agree with his assessment of marketing measurement, it’s a great reminder that qualitative data serves a real purpose for thought leaders. A great conversation in the comments or a thoughtful DM can genuinely impact a company’s bottom line.
To learn more about Barney’s perspective on thought leadership, brand, and marketing in 2026, check out the full podcast.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
%20(1).gif)
.gif)
.gif)
%20(1).gif)
