The Future Is Personal: Sagar Khatri Of Multiplier On How Leaders Are Building Brands That Outlast Their Businesses
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
People trust people more than they trust companies.
People trust people more than they trust companies. That’s why more CEOs, founders, and executives are stepping out from behind the logo and building a real public voice, one that reflects what they stand for and where they’re trying to take their business. In this series, we’re talking with leaders who’ve made that shift, from running the day-to-day to becoming recognizable authorities in their space. They’ve learned that credibility builds over time, and that personal branding, when done right, can create influence that leads to something very meaningful.
As part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sagar Khatri.
Sagar Khatri, a visionary leader and entrepreneur, serves as the CEO and co-founder of Multiplier, a pioneering global teams platform empowering businesses to seamlessly hire, onboard, and pay talent across 150+ countries. Motivated by his firsthand encounters with the complexities of international expansion in prior ventures, Sagar, alongside his co-founders, established Multiplier to redefine the employment landscape. Their mission is to simplify global workforce management, ensuring it’s as effortless as managing local teams, while handling intricacies such as employment contracts, payroll, taxes, and benefits in compliance with local regulations.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into the discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your backstory and what brought you to your current career path?
I grew up in a small town in India and studied Civil Engineering at IIT Bombay. Early on, I knew I wanted a career with global exposure, so I joined Nomura, working in business strategy and deal advisory across Tokyo, Singapore, and other Asian markets.
My path shifted when a friend at Sequoia encouraged me to explore tech startups. I joined Hmlet as Head of Corporate Development, tasked with international expansion. It took nearly ten months just to open a bank account and set up a legal entity in developed markets like Australia and Japan. That’s when I realized traditional legal entities were the wrong tool for modern employment.
In 2020, I founded Multiplier to remove the barriers that make global hiring unnecessarily complex and build the infrastructure that lets companies scale internationally without borders getting in the way. Our mission is simple: where someone is born shouldn’t limit the opportunities they can access.
Was there a defining moment when you realized that building a personal brand was no longer optional for leaders, it was essential?
It was a gradual realization as Multiplier scaled globally. Over time, I noticed that founders and leaders didn’t just want to engage with the company, they wanted to connect with someone who had faced the same challenges and understood firsthand what it takes to hire across borders and build global teams.
That’s when it became clear to me that a personal brand is about cultivating trust. When leaders share their experiences and lessons openly, it establishes credibility and leads to more meaningful, lasting conversations than a company message alone ever could.
How would you describe the relationship between your business brand and your personal brand today? Do they operate separately, or are they intentionally intertwined?
I see them as two parts of the same conversation. As we help companies hire globally, we’re building our own global team in real-time, so it makes sense to share the ‘how’ behind it. My personal brand is really just about showing the work. I’ve found that one leader talking to another about real trade-offs and lessons carries way more weight than a polished marketing campaign.
At the same time, the company has to stand on its own. My voice can support it, but the business ultimately proves itself through the value it creates and the results it delivers to its customers.
What’s the biggest misconception people have about personal branding for established leaders or executives?
A big misconception is that personal branding for executives is about maintaining a perfectly polished image. In reality, credibility comes from authenticity, not perfection. People connect when they see the person behind the title, the decisions you’ve made, the mistakes and lessons along the way, and even the small, everyday moments that show you’re human. One of my best-performing posts was just a photo of me eating a dumpling, and it resonated because it was relatable. Sharing both the human moments and the bigger challenges builds trust and makes leadership approachable.
Can you share a time when becoming more visible personally directly benefited your company or career?
Early in our journey, my co-founder and I would stay awake until 4:00 AM Singapore time to do demos for US clients. There was a moment when a customer in the American Midwest wired us $50,000 after seeing the platform and speaking to us, despite us being two guys in Singapore who didn’t look or speak like him. That personal visibility and willingness to show up established the trust necessary to close the deal. Over time, that same visibility evolved into something bigger, helping us build a community of founders and operators who wanted to learn from one another and use those conversations to navigate global hiring together.
What were some of the first steps you took to define your personal narrative or thought leadership platform?
I started by working with a coach to better understand my communication style and strengthen my emotional intelligence. That helped me show up with clarity and intention, whether I was speaking in leadership meetings or addressing the entire company. I was also deliberate about sharing not just wins, but the journey behind them and what they taught me. Over time, I realized that thought leadership is less about having all the answers and more about offering perspective shaped by real experiences.
Many leaders fear self-promotion or worry about appearing “too public.” How did you overcome that mindset, and what advice would you give others struggling with it?
As a founder, you have two main jobs: Raising financial capital and hiring human capital. Building a personal brand helps with both. It also helps to view it through the lens of transparency; if I am transparent about my calendar and my challenges, it builds trust and improves culture. Ultimately, if being visible helps you win, it’s something you have to do.
How has media, including interviews, podcasts, and social platforms, helped amplify your personal voice, and what lessons have I learned from those experiences?
Media has given me a platform to amplify my personal voice and scale trust beyond one-to-one conversations. In the early days, people only knew Multiplier through the product, but podcasts and interviews changed the dynamic and let them see the ‘why’ behind the ‘what.’ I’ve had candidates tell me they signed their offer letter because of a specific conversation they heard me have, and customers who reached out because my perspective on global work mirrored their own frustrations.
The biggest lesson has been that substance matters more than polish. People connect with honesty, clarity, and perspective shaped by real experience.
Can you share a mistake or misstep you made early in your personal branding journey, and what it taught you?
I initially stayed behind the scenes and let Multiplier’s brand speak for itself. As we grew, I noticed that some of our strongest customer and hiring conversations happened after people heard me share our thinking in interviews or podcasts. They weren’t just evaluating the product, but the conviction behind it. That experience taught me that founder visibility plays an important role in building trust and helping people understand the mission and direction of the company.
How do you ensure that your personal brand evolves as you and your business grow, without losing credibility or focus?
As we grew from a small team to a team operating across dozens of countries, the nature of decisions and lessons changed, and my perspective evolved with it. Early on, my focus was on execution, hiring the first leaders, refining the product, and finding product-market fit. Over time, it shifted toward leadership, culture, and long-term strategy. The principles stayed the same, but the context deepened with scale.
In a crowded market, what do you do to sound like yourself instead of generic ‘thought leadership’?”
I am very deliberate about being direct. English is not my first language, so I naturally avoid jargon and get to the point quickly. Over time, I have found that people connect far more with specificity and honesty than with polished, generic narratives.
How do you measure whether your personal brand is working, what signals matter, and what signals don’t?”
I ignore the vanity metrics. High impressions are easy to get, but they don’t move the needle. The most meaningful signal is when potential hires, customers, or partners reach out with a clear understanding of what we’re building and want to be part of it.
It also shows in the depth of conversations, especially when people reference specific perspectives I’ve shared. Metrics like impressions or follower counts matter far less in isolation. What matters is whether your voice builds credibility and attracts the right people, instead of the most people, to create opportunities over time.
Here is our main question. Based on your experience, what are the top 5 strategies leaders can use to build a personal brand that outlasts their business? (Please share an example or story for each.)
1. Don’t be afraid to talk about your failures
Some of the most resonant content I’ve shared comes from moments of struggle. For example, I’ve spoken openly about the challenges I faced trying to set up entities at a previous company — experiences that ultimately inspired the creation of Multiplier.
2. You don’t need to be an expert to start building a brand
When I wrote my first LinkedIn post, Multiplier had barely crossed 20 employees. I wasn’t a global hiring expert, I was just someone trying to solve a problem I’d experienced myself. Your personal brand doesn’t come from expertise. It comes from documenting what you’re learning as you build.
3. Your personal brand doesn’t need to be static — it should evolve with you
As Multiplier has grown, I have grown alongside it. My perspective is no longer that of the entire company, instead, I focus on global leadership, my startup experience, and the future of work.
4. Don’t tie everything to your company
The most authentic personal brands are built on experiences, beliefs, and perspectives beyond just what you’re building right now or doing in the day-to-day. Sharing stories like how I met my co-founder at university, or my obsession with premium engineering and building things that last, helps people understand what drives me at a deeper level.
5. Find your own voice
The tone amongst leaders on certain social media platforms can start to sound the same, or formulaic. While it can be tempting to fall in line and try to match the overall vibe, following your own voice will help you sound less like a robot and more like a human worth engaging with.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I like to think I am already in such a movement — a movement toward a world without limits, where opportunity is defined by talent, not geography. While global work is already possible, access to it is still uneven and inaccessible to many. The goal is to make global economic participation seamless and universal, so someone’s earning potential is not limited by where they live. This is the vision behind what we’re building at Multiplier — helping create a world where anyone, anywhere, can access meaningful opportunity.
How can our readers continue to follow you or your company online?
The best place to follow my thoughts is on LinkedIn, where I regularly share lessons from building Multiplier, perspectives on global hiring, and reflections on leadership and company-building. You can also follow Multiplier on LinkedIn and visit our website to learn more about how we’re helping companies build truly global teams.
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 Future Is Personal: Sagar Khatri Of Multiplier On How Leaders Are Building Brands That Outlast… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.