On Being Asked to Introduce Myself
Hello, my name is Karen Hollenbach. I’m the Founding Director of Think Bespoke. A little while ago I recorded a short introduction for an upcoming conference. Listening back to the podcast episode once it went live (privately, within the conference community), I noticed something. Buried in the stream of it, between the context and the credentials, were the things I actually believe. About work. About people. About what it means to show up somewhere and be known.
So I decided to write it down properly. Not as a bio. Not as a pitch. As a long form piece, the way I prefer to think things through.
This is my introduction to you.
The short version, and why it is never really the whole story
But the short version leaves out the most important part, which is that it is never really about LinkedIn.
It is about the people. It is about sitting across from someone, or on a Zoom call with someone, and listening to them describe what they do, what they have built, what they have survived, and then finding the words that make it make sense to another human being. That is the actual work. LinkedIn is just the platform.
I am curious about people’s stories in a way that has never dimmed. I think that is because I genuinely believe that most people are doing something meaningful, and most people find it hard to say so. There is something about talking and writing about yourself that sits uncomfortably. Think Bespoke exists because of that discomfort. Sixteen years in, and it has not gone away.
What Think Bespoke actually does
Think Bespoke started as a resume writing service, which became a LinkedIn profile writing service, which grew into a company in 2015 when I put on, as I like to say, my big girl pants. The business has three main parts now, though they are less like divisions and more like a natural response to what my clients have kept asking for over the years.
The first is LinkedIn profile writing. That is predominantly my work, and it is something I am very particular about. I have an interviewing process. I want people to sound like they do when I meet them in person. Not polished into blandness. Not smoothed by AI into something technically correct but entirely forgettable. Human. Clear. Distinctly them.
The second part is content strategy and thought leadership. I work with my wonderful colleague Debbie, who people have occasionally assumed is my life partner, which we both find very amusing. She is my work wife, and it is a genuinely good marriage. Together we help professionals, particularly in professional services and recruitment, build a strategic presence on LinkedIn. For some clients, this relationship has deepened over years to the point where I am effectively a fractional CMO, knowing their business well enough to make decisions with them, not just for them.
The third part is training and mentoring. I have a framework called the Elevate Map, which I use to help people build a simple, sustainable rhythm on LinkedIn. Not complicated. Not loud. Just consistent, clear, and grounded in what actually matters for them.
Most of my work is with people who do not want to be loud. They want to be clear. They want to be visible without feeling like they are performing. If you identify with putting your head down and letting your work speak for itself, I understand that instinct completely, and I also know the world has changed. Managing your reputation online is no longer optional. It just does not have to feel like a performance.
How I build and sustain this, quietly
I am a big Cal Newport reader, which tells you something about how I like to work. Deep work. Slow productivity. Time blocking rather than endless to-do lists. I plan my week in blocks, by hand, because if I do not protect my thinking time, it gets eaten immediately by meetings and messages and the relentless pull of the online world.
I am a quiet achiever. My business is sustained through referrals from clients who are happy with their experience. Showing up on LinkedIn is less about broadcasting and more about reminding people that I am here.
Yes, I am still writing LinkedIn profiles after all this time!
I believe credibility compounds. My focus is on what I call Nurturing the Known. With sixteen years of business and the networks that come with it, I am not chasing reach. I am going deeper with the people already in my orbit.
The life alongside the work
I am an ambivert, which I discovered by accident when I read Susan Cain’s book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. This helped me understand why I sometimes need to step outside and take in the view.
This discovery was also one of the many reasons I began writing creatively on Substack.
Confessions by KPH was originally called Confessions of an Ambivert.
Writing Confessions by KPH has become an unexpected and joyful place for me to find my voice outside of LinkedIn.
I am a reader. What I read is influenced by different aspects of my life, as well as the monthly choices of my book club. I am also a bibliotherapist in training, and believe in the power of books, poems and short stories for wellbeing. And I’m serialising a family history project, about the last woman hanged in Goulburn. I come from convict ancestry. You can read how this all started here.
What I want you to know
Your quiet work has a place in the public square.
That is the thing I most want to say to the professionals I meet who are good at what they do and reluctant to say so. Not because they lack confidence exactly, but because the way most people talk about online visibility feels wrong for them. Unnatural. Too loud. Too performative. Too much.
Being clear is more powerful than being loud. Showing up consistently, in your own voice, over time, builds something that a loud moment cannot.
With love & gratitude,
Karen Hollenbach (KPH)