An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Protect Energy Like Capital. Profit without peace isn’t sustainable. I’ve taken on projects that looked good financially but created internal chaos. The cost always surfaced elsewhere.
The most successful modern CEOs are rewriting the rules of leadership. They’re not only building profitable companies but building purposeful brands with personal voices behind them. These leaders understand that in today’s world, people invest in people. Their stories, values, and visibility fuel loyalty, attract opportunities, and drive business growth far beyond traditional metrics. In this interview series, we’re sitting down with leaders who’ve learned to balance purpose, profit, and personal brand — and who are using their influence to shape the future of business leadership.
As part of this series, we had the pleasure to interview Lauren Paige Woulard.
Lauren Paige Woulard is a communications executive, speaker, and founder redefining what modern leadership looks like at the intersection of culture, capital, and personal brand. With more than a decade leading high-impact publicity campaigns across entertainment, media, and live events — including global franchises and award-winning talent — she now helps leaders and creators transform visibility into ownership. Through her work, Lauren champions a new CEO playbook rooted in purpose-driven strategy, profitable positioning, and building a personal brand powerful enough to outlast any single title.
Thank you so much for joining us in this series. Before we begin, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share your backstory and what led you to become the leader you are today?
My leadership story didn’t start with entrepreneurship — it started behind the scenes. I built my career in communications and publicity, leading campaigns across entertainment, fashion, live events, and culture. I’ve worked on global award shows, high-profile talent, and major brand platforms, often operating in rooms where the spotlight was bright — but rarely on me. For years, my role was to amplify others, protect reputations, and strategically position brands at scale.
But my path to this moment has not been linear. I’ve pivoted industries. I’ve started over. I’ve taken roles that stretched me and seasons that humbled me. Through it all, I held onto one belief: if I remained persistent and committed to refining my craft, my gift would make room for me.
Then everything shifted.
After navigating a layoff at a pivotal moment in my career, I was forced to confront a hard truth: I had spent over a decade building powerful brands, but I hadn’t fully built my own. That disruption didn’t diminish my expertise — it clarified it.
Today, I lead from a place of ownership. I speak, consult, and build at the intersection of purpose, profit, and personal brand — not because the path was perfect, but because it was persistent. And now, I’m standing fully in that truth.
What’s the “why” that drives your work? How has your personal sense of purpose evolved as your business has grown?
My “why” has never changed — but the way I live it has.
From the beginning, my work has been about elevation. Elevating storytellers. Elevating women of color. Elevating creatives who don’t fit the industry’s narrow mold. I’ve always wanted to show that you don’t have to look the part, know the right people, or come from the right background to succeed. You can be a Black, plus-sized woman in fashion and beauty. You can switch industries. You can start without connections. If you’re persistent, curious, and committed to refining your gift, your talent will make room for you.
That belief is personal. It’s my story.
What has evolved is my understanding of purpose. For years, I tied my worth to performance — to the brands I built, the rooms I was in, the titles I held. I thought my purpose was what I could produce. Now I know my purpose is who I am. My leadership, my creativity, my perspective — those existed before any company validated them.
As my business grows, my purpose feels less about proving and more about positioning. Less about fitting in and more about building spaces where others don’t have to shrink to belong.
Let’s now move to the core of our discussion. This series is about balancing purpose, profit, and personal branding. Can you help explain why each of those three matters, and why they can sometimes pull against each other? If possible, share a real example from your experience.
Purpose, profit, and personal brand are all essential — but they don’t naturally align without intention.
Purpose is your internal compass. It’s why you do the work. Profit is sustainability. Without it, purpose becomes burnout. And personal brand is positioning — it’s how the market understands and values what you bring.
The tension comes when one outpaces the others. Early in my career, I was deeply aligned with purpose — I loved building stories, elevating talent, shaping culture. I was also helping generate enormous profit for the brands I represented. But I hadn’t invested enough in my own personal brand. My visibility was tied to the companies I worked for, not to my individual authority. So when I experienced a layoff, I realized something hard: I had built equity for others, but not enough for myself.
That was the friction point.
Balancing the three means making decisions that honor your values, ensure you’re compensated at your level of impact, and build brand equity that travels with you. If one pillar collapses, the others get strained.
Now, I build differently. I ask: Is this aligned? Is it profitable? And does it strengthen my long-term positioning?
Many CEOs focus heavily on strategy and profitability but hesitate to invest in their personal brand. What do you think about that? What have you seen work best?
I think it’s one of the biggest strategic blind spots modern CEOs have.
We’re in an era where people can feel inauthenticity immediately. Consumers are more discerning, more fatigued, and more skeptical than ever. There’s been so much disruption — layoffs, industry shifts, economic uncertainty — that people aren’t just buying products anymore. They’re looking for connection. They want to understand the human behind the business.
I’ve seen incredibly strategic, profitable leaders struggle because they invested heavily in infrastructure, marketing, and scale — but not in visibility rooted in authenticity. Their companies were polished, but their personal brands were hollow. And when challenges came, there was no emotional equity to sustain loyalty.
What works best is alignment. When a CEO’s business is a natural extension of who they are — their values, lived experiences, and point of view — the brand becomes durable. People can tell when something is built from genuine conviction versus opportunism.
Strategy builds revenue. Authentic personal branding builds resonance. And in this climate, resonance is what sustains relevance.
If your name is attached to something, it can’t just be profitable. It has to be believable.
What are some misconceptions you’ve encountered about personal branding in the C-suite, and how do you challenge those narratives?
One of the biggest misconceptions I’ve encountered is the belief that personal brand and executive leadership should be completely separate. There’s often an unspoken rule in the C-suite that professionalism requires emotional distance — that humanity must be muted to maintain authority.
In my experience working alongside senior leaders, the executives who struggle most with connection are the ones who treat their professional identity as armor. They operate as if vulnerability undermines credibility. But what I’ve seen — and felt — is the opposite.
The leaders who inspire loyalty and long-term followership are the ones whose personal values are visible in how they lead. Not oversharing. Not performative relatability. But alignment. When people can sense that the person in the boardroom is the same person outside of it, trust builds.
I’ve worked under leaders whose humanity only surfaced in rare moments — and those were the moments that changed how teams experienced them. It reinforced for me that authority and authenticity are not in competition.
The most effective leaders don’t split themselves in two. Their personal brand doesn’t compete with their executive presence — it strengthens it.
What’s one specific way your visibility as a leader, through interviews, speaking, or social media, has directly impacted your organization’s success? Walk us through what happened. How did you know it worked, what changed in measurable terms?
While I was leading communications at Paramount, I was frequently invited to speak on panels for emerging media professionals and multicultural industry groups. Instead of presenting a polished, corporate narrative, I spoke honestly about my non-linear path — pivoting industries, navigating rooms where I didn’t “fit the mold,” and building credibility without legacy access.
What I noticed almost immediately was the shift in perception. Attendees would approach me afterward saying, “I didn’t know someone like me could work there,” or “I didn’t realize executives at that level had journeys like that.” That visibility didn’t just elevate me — it reframed the organization.
By showing up authentically, I humanized a global brand. It positioned Paramount as a place where diverse pathways were possible, not just traditional ones. Internally, that authenticity translated into trust. Team members often shared that my transparency changed how they approached their own careers and leadership style.
The measurable impact showed up in recruitment conversations, stronger cross-team collaboration, and increased engagement in initiatives I led. Visibility wasn’t vanity — it became an extension of brand equity.
That’s when I saw clearly: when a leader’s public voice aligns with internal culture, the organization benefits.
Balancing profit and purpose is easier said than done. What practices or principles guide your decision-making when those two goals seem to conflict?
Balancing profit and purpose isn’t theoretical for me — it’s something I’m actively refining.
Especially after my layoff, I became much more aware of how easy it is to say yes from urgency instead of alignment. And in this economy, that pressure is real. I’ve taken on work purely for profit. But what I’ve learned is that money made in misalignment costs you somewhere else — usually in peace, energy, or clarity.
So one of my guiding practices now is what I call an internal audit. Before committing, I ask: When this project is complete, how will I feel? Energized or depleted? Proud or conflicted? Expanded or contracted?
Profit matters. Sustainability matters. But if a decision consistently creates internal chaos, that’s data. I’ve learned to trust that signal.
Another principle I use is longevity. Will this opportunity strengthen my long-term positioning, or is it just immediate cash flow? Sometimes you take the short-term win — but you do it consciously, not blindly.
Purpose doesn’t mean every project feels perfect. It means you understand why you’re doing it and at what cost. That awareness has changed how I lead and how I build.
Can you share a story about how aligning your personal values with your company’s mission created a breakthrough in performance or growth?
One breakthrough moment came when I consciously decided to lead publicly and internally from the same set of values.
While I was leading communications at Paramount, I was deeply committed to authenticity, representation, and mentorship — values that were personal to me long before they were corporate initiatives. Instead of separating those parts of myself, I integrated them into how I led my team.
I became intentional about transparency in high-pressure moments. When campaigns were intense or timelines were tight, I didn’t default to hierarchy. I invited collaboration. I explained the “why” behind decisions. I made space for junior team members to speak up, especially those who didn’t always feel seen in larger rooms.
What changed was trust.
The team moved faster because they felt ownership. Cross-functional partners were more collaborative because they felt respected, not dictated to. And the campaigns we executed reflected more cultural nuance because the room was more open.
Performance improved not because I imposed more pressure — but because alignment created buy-in.
That experience reinforced something for me: when your personal values aren’t hidden, but integrated into leadership, culture strengthens — and results follow.
In your view, what separates a leader who simply “runs a company” from one who builds a movement around their message?
A leader who runs a company focuses on operations. A leader who builds a movement focuses on belief.
Running a company is about execution — revenue targets, systems, structure. Building a movement is about conviction. It requires a message strong enough that people see themselves inside of it. It’s not just “What do we sell?” It’s “What do we stand for?”
The difference is emotional equity.
Companies can scale without loyalty. Movements create belonging. When people connect to your message — not just your product — they advocate, they defend, they stay.
I’ve seen leaders with strong strategy fail to create impact because their message was transactional. And I’ve seen leaders with clear conviction rally communities because their personal values were visible and consistent.
Movements are built when the leader is willing to be seen — not just as an executive, but as a person with perspective. When your message reflects lived experience, not just market positioning, it resonates differently.
Anyone can run an operation. Building a movement requires identity, courage, and alignment.
How do you integrate storytelling into your leadership, both internally with your team and externally with your audience or clients?
Storytelling is how I lead — not just how I market.
Internally, I use storytelling to create clarity. When teams understand the narrative behind what we’re building — the cultural relevance, the audience shift, the bigger picture — they don’t just execute tasks, they execute with intention. I’ve found that when you frame strategy within a story, people connect emotionally to outcomes, not just deadlines.
Externally, storytelling becomes positioning. Every brand, every leader, every campaign is competing for attention. Data informs the strategy, but story is what moves people. When I work with clients or speak publicly, I’m always asking: What’s the throughline? What’s the transformation? What does this mean for the person on the other side of the screen?
For me, storytelling isn’t about embellishment — it’s about alignment. It’s the discipline of translating complexity into meaning.
Can you share a time when taking a public stand or sharing your story authentically strengthened your credibility or influence?
When I was laid off, I had a choice: stay quiet and privately regroup, or publicly own the moment.
For someone who had built a career leading communications at the highest levels, admitting that I had been let go felt risky. There’s an unspoken pressure in executive spaces to only share wins. But I chose transparency. I began speaking openly about reinvention, about what it feels like to build powerful brands for years and then have to rebuild your own.
What happened surprised me.
Instead of diminishing my credibility, it strengthened it. My inbox shifted. Leaders, founders, and peers began reaching out not just to check in, but to ask for perspective. Panels and interviews followed — not about the layoff itself, but about ownership, resilience, and personal brand equity.
By taking control of the narrative, I reframed it.
I realized that credibility doesn’t come from appearing untouchable. It comes from being self-aware and strategic in public. That moment expanded my influence because people didn’t just see my résumé — they saw my resilience.
And resilience is a form of leadership.
What are your “Top 5 principles for balancing purpose, profit, and personal visibility?” (Please include a short example for each, plus one action a reader could try this week.)
1. Alignment Before Agreement
Not every opportunity that pays is meant to be pursued. Early in my career, I said yes to roles that elevated my résumé but drained my energy. Now, before committing, I ask whether the work aligns with my long-term positioning and values.
Action: Before saying yes to your next opportunity, write down why you’re accepting it — growth, profit, positioning, or fear. Be honest.
2. Build Equity, Not Just Income
At one point, I was helping generate significant visibility and revenue for brands while neglecting my own. When I experienced a layoff, I realized income isn’t the same as equity.
Action: This week, publish one piece of thought leadership that builds your authority — not someone else’s brand.
3. Let Visibility Reflect Identity
Personal branding isn’t performance. The moments my influence grew most were when I spoke authentically about my non-linear path and reinvention.
Action: Share one lesson from your journey that isn’t polished — but real.
4. Protect Energy Like Capital
Profit without peace isn’t sustainable. I’ve taken on projects that looked good financially but created internal chaos. The cost always surfaced elsewhere.
Action: Audit your calendar. Identify one commitment that consistently drains you and explore whether it’s necessary.
5. Think Long-Term Positioning
Every decision either compounds or distracts. I now filter opportunities through a longevity lens: will this strengthen my brand five years from now?
Action: Before accepting something new, ask: does this move me toward who I’m becoming?
Finally, if you could summarize your leadership philosophy in one sentence, what would it be — and why?
My leadership philosophy is simple: build from alignment, lead with ownership, and never shrink your identity to fit the room.
Because I’ve learned that sustainable success doesn’t come from performing for approval — it comes from knowing who you are, positioning it strategically, and having the courage to let that be visible. When purpose, profit, and personal brand are aligned, leadership stops being about proving and starts being about building something that lasts.
How can our readers continue to follow you or your company online?
Readers can follow my work on LinkedIn — Lauren Woulard, where I regularly share insights on leadership, visibility, and building personal brand equity in evolving industries. I also document my journey and perspective on Instagram and Threads at @MissLaurenPaige, where I explore culture, career reinvention, and what it means to lead with both strategy and authenticity.
As I continue building at the intersection of communications, speaking, and community, I’m always sharing new projects, collaborations, and thought leadership through those platforms. I believe visibility is a conversation — not a broadcast — so I genuinely welcome connection and dialogue.
Thank you so much for sharing all of these insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About The Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator.
The New CEO Playbook: Lauren Paige Woulard On Balancing Purpose, Profit, and Personal Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.