5 Examples of Excellent LinkedIn Bios for CEOs
CEOs out there: What do customers find on the internet when they run a quick search for your name?
Chances are one of the first search results (if not the #1 result) is your LinkedIn profile. But are you sending the right message with your LinkedIn bio, or scaring customers — not to mention prospective hires, investors, and partners — away?
Whether you’re new to the platform or already have a profile, it’s important to make sure your LinkedIn presence is optimized and makes the best impression possible. In this piece, we examine some of the key elements your LinkedIn bio should include, along with some real-world examples of what excellent LinkedIn profiles look like.
How long should a LinkedIn bio be?
Currently, LinkedIn allows users to create bios — i.e., the “About” section of the profile, which is arguably the most important section (though other areas, like the Featured Section, Experience, and Education deserve attention, too) — using 2,600 characters, which roughly lands somewhere in the range of 400 and 650 words.
In our age of shrinking attention spans, great LinkedIn bios err on the side of brevity, hovering perhaps somewhere between 200 and 500 words (some CEOs do, however, go way shorter; Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and Canva CEO Melanie Perkins went with one sentence).
Sticking between 200 and 500 words allows CEOs to provide a detailed overview of their professional journey, accomplishments, and leadership philosophy without overwhelming the reader. It also gives them space to highlight key milestones, industry expertise, and career achievements, emphasizing leadership qualities and strategic vision.
This comprehensive approach helps build credibility and trust among LinkedIn connections, which can make it easier to attract investors, talent, and business partners.
Pro tip: Your LinkedIn bio doesn’t have to be confined exclusively to LinkedIn. Crafting a great LinkedIn bio is time well-spent since this can be used as your bio on your company website, for media appearances, and for speaking engagements.
How do I write an impressive LinkedIn profile?
To create an impressive LinkedIn bio, a CEO should start with a strong, professional opening that captures their current leadership role and industry expertise. The bio should highlight key achievements, emphasizing metrics-driven successes and impactful projects that showcase their leadership and strategic vision. If you built a SaaS company from the ground-up to $100 million in annual recurring revenue, by all means broadcast that.
CEOs should also mention previous roles, major career shifts, and experiences that have shaped their leadership style.
Adding a personal touch is crucial, too. Sharing what drives you, your professional philosophy, and personal interests that align with your career can humanize the profile. While you’re at it, mention involvement in industry organizations, speaking engagements, or published work can further establish your authority.
Should your LinkedIn bio be in third person or first person?
Another point to consider is whether you’ll refer to yourself in the third-person (i.e., “John Doe leads an amazing company” or first-person (i.e., “I lead an amazing company”) in your bio. As you’ll see from the examples below, there are no hard-and-fast rules here.
Using the first person can help contribute to a more accessible, conversational tone. This aligns well with the overall look and feel of LinkedIn. After all, people follow you on social media because they want to connect directly with a real person. You don’t write your LinkedIn updates in the third-person, so that’s a good reason to frame your bio in the first person, as well.
Using the third person, by contrast, can help create a more formal and impressive-sounding bio. The third person is also the format used in traditional executive bios. And most executives will already have a third-person bio handy from previous speaking engagements, industry events, and company websites.
What should I include in my LinkedIn bio?
Since everyone is a unique individual, your LinkedIn bio should be truly your own.
As you begin drafting a new bio or refining an existing one, however, here are some key elements everyone should aim to include:
- An introduction that conveys your current role and professional focus.
- Career highlights, including key accomplishments, experiences, and positions held throughout your career.
- Skills and expertise that showcase your strengths.
- Achievements, including awards, certifications, and accomplishments that demonstrate your capabilities.
- Passions and values that drive you professionally and personally.
- Professional goals that outline what you hope to achieve by the time you call it a career.
Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, you might also want to include a call to action that invites readers to reach out directly or connect on other social platforms.
How can I make my LinkedIn bio stand out?
First things first: Your LinkedIn profile should include an up-to-date, high-quality professional headshot. You should also aim to create a compelling headline that captures your unique value proposition and expertise, using keywords relevant to your industry to make your profile easier to discover.
Once you’ve gotten those out of the way, it’s time to craft a concise yet engaging story about your career journey, touching upon all of the elements we’ve discussed to this point in this piece. Pay special attention to white space, formatting, and bullet points, too. You want your LinkedIn bio to be easy to read, and we all know how unappealing large blocks of text are on the internet (and pretty much anywhere else, too, for that matter).
What does such a story look like? It starts with a hook that engages readers right off the bat. Don’t beat around the bush; tell folks exactly who you are and exactly what you do. To make sure your bio resonates, avoid business jargon and words that might appear on an SAT exam. Be short, to the point, and conversational.
Examples of great CEO LinkedIn bios
By now, you’re probably thinking that this all sounds great. But you might be wondering how to pull it off in the real world. In this section, we examine five excellent LinkedIn profiles and why you should strive to emulate them.
1. Jeff Weiner, executive chairman at LinkedIn and former CEO
To learn more about what a good CEO profile looks like on LinkedIn, why not study the bio of a guy who ran the company for more than 11 years?
Though Weiner is currently involved in other ventures, he’s still executive chairman of LinkedIn, and he kicks off his profile with his vision for LinkedIn, indicating it’s still top of mind. Read his profile, and you’ll walk away with a complete high-level overview of what he’s accomplished in his career and what he’s hoping to accomplish next.
Key takeaways
- The power of stats: Weiner includes some jaw-dropping accomplishments during his tenure as CEO — like increasing members from 33 million to more than 690 million and growing revenue from $78 million to $7.9 billion.
- Looking beyond corporate: He emphasizes his work outside the office to round out his profile, including a commitment to The Compassion Project.
2. Sid Sijbrandij, CEO at GitLab
How do you pronounce Sijbrandij anyway? Sid tells you right away before diving into his accomplishments at GitLab and continuing to flesh out his LinkedIn bio by discussing his nontraditional career path. He rounds out his bio by talking about what he’s working on in addition to GitLab.
Key takeaways
- Catching the reader with unexpected experiences: Sijbrandij discusses his nontraditional career path, which included a four-year stint building recreational submarines.
- Calling attention to media accolades: Who wouldn’t want other people to know Forbes considers you one of the top business minds of the pandemic?
3. Dustin Moskovitz, CEO at Asana
Four years after co-founding Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz co-founded Asana, a workplace collaboration app. Moskovitz’s LinkedIn bio describes his journey from Facebook to Asana and beyond, concluding with a vision of what he hopes the future looks like — and the way he intends to make it a reality.
Key takeaways
- Narrative unity: From the outset, you might not see many similarities between a major social network made for leisure and a business productivity tool, but Moskovitz provides an aha moment out of the gate, and suddenly Facebook and Asana seem considerably more similar to each other than before.
- Philanthropy and charity matters: Like Weiner, Moskovitz gives a nod to his non-work-related activities by mentioning Good Ventures Foundation, the nonprofit he founded with his wife Cari.
4. Barbara Corcoran, CEO of Barbara Corcoran, Inc.
Corcoran’s LinkedIn bio may be briefer than the other CEOs included in this article, but it perhaps says the most. After an engaging hook, highlights from her incredible career ooze through the post, and she ends by encouraging readers to follow her on other social platforms, further developing her online presence and expanding her reach.
Key takeaways
- The power of a hook: Barbara Corcoran is very rich and very successful. That being the case, you might be surprised to learn that she got straight Ds in high school and couldn’t keep a job until she turned 23 — which is exactly what she leads with.
- A call to action: By encouraging readers to follow her on other social platforms, Corcoran is leveraging a captivated audience to grow
5. Doug McMillion, CEO and president at Walmart, Inc.
Think back to the first job you ever had. Now, imagine ultimately becoming that company’s CEO 30 years later — and that company happened to be one of the world’s largest retailers worth more than $550 billion.
Doug McMillon’s story is an interesting one to say the least. He kicks off his bio with living proof that it is possible to climb the corporate ladder, giving hope and inspiration to professionals of all stripes. McMillon’s bio goes on to cover some of the key initiatives Walmart is working on, along with some of the other work he’s involved in.
Key takeaways
- Leading with “the human” element: When you think of most Fortune 500 CEOs, you don’t think of them working a low-level job for the company they end up running. With this intro sentence, McMillon makes himself relatable and interesting right out of the gate.
- Highlighting company vision: Walmart is perhaps as well-established as a business can get. McMillon uses his bio to highlight the future of Walmart and how the organization is working to protect the planet and improve employee experiences.
Need help creating an effective CEO LinkedIn bio?
As a CEO, you have a million things on your plate, and your stack of obligations keeps getting higher and higher.
Writing an effective LinkedIn bio takes time, patience, and experience. Rather than spending your own precious energy on creating your profile, you might be better off collaborating with experts who can help you produce a LinkedIn bio that resonates.
By partnering with the right social media management team, you can rest comfortably knowing that your LinkedIn presence is in great hands — and that you have more time to focus on what’s most important: serving your customers and growing your business.
For more information on what working with a social media management team looks like, read this.
