In this episode of The Huddle Leadership Podcast, host Kate Russell welcomes back branding and marketing expert Lowen Partridge, founder of Pear Tree Brand Strategy. Lowen's holistic approach to branding goes far beyond logos and visual identity, revealing how clarity in brand strategy becomes the foundation for effective leadership, aligned teams, and sustainable business growth.
With 25 years of experience developing brand-focused strategies, Lowen takes us through her journey from working with big accounting firms in the early 2000s to establishing her own practice. Her unique approach treats branding as reputation management—a strategic framework that encompasses everything from how you differentiate from competitors to how staff members embody company values in their daily work.
Now specialising in both organisational and personal branding, Lowen works with businesses and professionals to develop clear brand identities that prevent conflict, reduce wasted resources, and create alignment across all levels of an organisation. Through her strategic workshops and brand reveal processes, Lowen demonstrates how proper branding becomes a leadership tool that empowers teams, attracts the right people, and naturally cultivates others.
Key Takeaways
Branding is a leadership responsibility: The brand falls squarely on the ownership, board, and senior leadership team—not the marketing department or external ad agency. Leaders must provide guidance and drive what the brand represents, even if they don't implement it themselves.
Think reputation, not logo: Most people think brand equals visual identity, but branding is actually about reputation. When leaders shift from thinking about logos to thinking about how they want to be perceived, the real strategic work begins.
Lack of clarity creates conflict: Without a clear brand identity, people do what they think they should be doing based on personal preference. This dilutes the brand, wastes money, and creates organisational conflict as team members work at cross-purposes.
Staff are brand ambassadors: Every staff member is critical to exemplifying the brand. All employees must be able to live the brand values, making brand alignment a key factor in hiring, onboarding, and performance management.
Use the brand document as an objective tool: When behaviours or ideas go off-brand, managers can reference the agreed brand document rather than making subjective judgments. This transforms "I don't think you're behaving properly" into "I'm wondering whether this aligns with our brand."
Brand reveals naturally culture people in or out: When organisations get clarity on their brand direction through strategic workshops, employees who don't align often self-select out—not because they're bad workers, but because their values or approach don't fit where the brand is going.
Create internal brand teams for momentum: Establishing a brand team with representatives from different areas of the business maintains enthusiasm after the brand reveal, collects implementation ideas from staff, and acts as a conduit between leadership and employees.
Build your database, don't rely on platforms: While social media allows precise targeting, smart brands focus on building their own email databases. Platforms can change rules instantly, and you can lose your data, but your own database remains under your control.
Personal branding follows the same principles: You already have a personal brand—the question is whether it's the one you want. Identify what you want to be known for, align your values, raise your profile in relevant circles, and develop a strategy before making tactical decisions.
Strategy prevents waste: Getting the strategy right before taking action saves time and money. A clear plan helps manage expectations, enables relevant contributions from team members, and prevents the chaos of chasing bright shiny objects.
Featured Discussion
Lowen's approach to brand strategy reveals a sophisticated understanding of how businesses actually function. Rather than treating branding as a marketing exercise, she positions it as a holistic business strategy that touches every aspect of operations—from product mix to internal culture to external communications.
The brand development process begins with market research, surveying not just clients and potential customers, but staff members as well. This early involvement primes employees to think about brand throughout the process, creating buy-in before the reveal. Lowen then works with leadership teams to develop and document the brand identity, including core elements, extended elements, brand personality, brand symbols, and ultimately a brand essence distilled down to one or two words.
The implementation phase demonstrates Lowen's understanding of organisational psychology. She brings staff together in operational groups—admin, sales, engineering, board members—to workshop three critical questions: What are we currently doing that we must keep doing to live the brand? What are we not doing that we need to start? And what are we currently doing that's counterproductive and needs to stop?
This process achieves multiple objectives simultaneously. Everyone understands their role in building the brand, not just the marketing department. The exercise surfaces practical implementation ideas from people who do the actual work. And most importantly, individuals who don't fit the brand direction recognise this themselves without being told—they simply see the misalignment and often resign voluntarily.
Kate and Lowen explore how this brand clarity prevents the common organisational pattern where technical skills are prioritised over cultural fit during hiring, leading to toxic situations down the line. They discuss how confusion about brand direction manifests as workplace conflict, with well-intentioned employees either "going feral" or exhausting themselves trying to guess what they should be doing.
The conversation also addresses the evolution of marketing channels, from mass-market legacy media to highly targeted social media. While acknowledging the noise and binary nature of online spaces, Lowen emphasises that modern markets are increasingly niche, allowing brands to reach specific audiences with precision—provided they understand who they are and who they're trying to reach.
Innovation Spotlight: Personal Branding for Professionals
One of the most practical sections of this conversation addresses personal branding for professionals looking to establish themselves as specialists in their fields. Lowen walks through a detailed example of an accountant from the Coonawarra who wants to specialise in advising wine companies.
The strategic process mirrors organisational branding: identify your heritage and existing advantages (being from a wine region), determine what you want to be known for (specialist expertise in wine industry business development), assess what additional qualifications or credentials you need, and identify which groups and networks you should join to raise your profile.
But it goes deeper than credentials and networking. Personal branding requires identifying your values—perhaps diligence combined with innovation—and understanding which elements of your personality you want to promote as part of your business brand. Only after this strategic work is complete do you make tactical decisions about things like how to dress, which courses to take, or which networking events to attend.
This approach prevents the common trap of professionals taking random actions in hopes of building their reputation. Instead, every decision—from joining industry groups to engaging with the wine community (both professionally and as a consumer)—flows from a clear strategy about the brand you're building.
Lowen emphasises that you can't manufacture your values, but you can identify what you want to achieve and be known for. The authenticity comes from aligning your natural strengths and genuine interests with a strategic direction that positions you effectively in your market.
Quotable Moments
"I don't even use the word brand; I talk about reputation. And when I start talking about your business's reputation, that's when they start to get it."
"You save so much money, and you avoid disaster. If you don't know who you are and what you stand for, people in the organisation go off doing what they think they should be doing."
"The brand really falls on the leadership of the organisation. They don't have to implement it, but they certainly need to provide the guidance and the leadership on what our brand is all about."
"Most employees want to do the right thing. They want to be good workers. But if they don't have the guidance, then they either go feral or they try hard to double-guess what they should be doing."
"It's not a manager saying, 'I don't think you're behaving properly.' There is an agreed brand document, and you can ask: 'Was what you did yesterday afternoon on brand?' It makes it an objective exercise instead of subjective."
"You already have a personal brand. The question is, is it the one that you want?"
"You will have a brand, but it could be a very weak brand because nobody knows about it, and there's total confusion. And that in fact is your brand—that you're confused."
"I'm a strategist. I really like getting the strategy right and then going for it because I'm not into waste. I don't like wasting time or money."
"Know thyself and communicate."
"Clarity, everybody's best friend."
Connect with Lowen Partridge
Follow us on socials:
IG - @thehuddle.au
FB - @TheHuddleAus
YT - @TheHuddle5000
LinkedIn - The Huddle leaders and teams