Founder & CEO
“Identity is inseparable from business, any type of business. They’re intertwined. I love the transformative power that understanding their own personal brands has on people, in every aspect of their lives.”
Rachel Gogos is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for people, the web, and creating strong personal brands. She started her career at the United Nations headquarters in New York city, where she helped create the look and feel for the organization’s first website. Today, in her current role running brandiD, Rachel channels over 15 years of marketing and communications experience into each and every website for brandiD’s clients.
As the founder of brandiD and MyPath101, Rachel is a true Internet pioneer who was creating businesses on the web before Google was established as a commercial entity in 1998, and long before the phrase “personal branding” became an industry buzzword.
She’s held positions at The Wall Street Journal and DowJones.com, and launched three companies of her own besides brandiD. Her entrepreneurial spirit started young; the child of Greek immigrants and Buffalo-based entrepreneurs, Rachel literally grew up in the restaurant business. As a budding entrepreneur, she developed a strategy and brand identity to turn a dilapidated eatery into a hip family restaurant, which remains a popular destination to this day.
True to her roots, she loves to work with entrepreneurs and co-founded the Internet incubator SiliconFish.com in the late 90’s while living in Manhattan. The company was a leader in helping to establish and brand offline businesses on the web.
BrandiD has enjoyed steady growth since it’s inception, and Rachel credits much of that success to her amazing team, as well as a handful of collaborations with inspiring entrepreneurs including mentor Jonathan Fields, who tapped her to be a staff member on a variety of projects under his GoodLifeProject.com umbrella. BrandiD also works with CopyBlogger.com’s Genesis themes as a preferred partner and Chatham University’s Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship as its preferred web design and development agency.
A writer at heart, Rachel used to pen a column, Digital You, which appeared on the online Business section of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.com. She was also a contributing author to Personal Branding For Dummies (Wiley), the #1 top-selling personal branding book on Amazon.com. For four years Rachel acted as the Editor-in-Chief of YOUnique, one of the few newsletters focusing exclusively on personal branding and building online identities, published by industry guru William Arruda and his company Reach.
When she isn’t immersing herself in all things personal-brand related, Rachel can be found honing her negotiating skills with her two young girls, Zoe and Alexa, or making her famous tiropita, much to the joy of her husband, Dino.
Rachel’s Top 3 Beliefs & Convictions
- Be authentic. Being your true self is liberating and empowering, and the best part about it is you don’t have to worry about trying to be someone you’re not!
- Everything happens for a reason. Although it may be hard to see it at the time, something good always comes out of a tough situation.
- Life is too short for bad coffee and bad company. Surround yourself with great people.
Achievements
- Master’s in Leadership, Technology & Education focusing on Higher Education from New York University.
- Rachel worked at The Wall Street Journal’s news desk and was a founding editor at dowjones.com.
- As the Director of Strategic Initiatives & Communications for the Boston Digital Bridge Foundation, Rachel helped energize and administer Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s technology programs, which resulted in one of his most successful economic development initiatives.
- Was, and still is, mentored by the founder of Reach Personal Branding, William Arruda, “the personal branding guru” according to Entrepreneur magazine.
- Based in Pittsburgh, Rachel is often interviewed as spokesperson for the region, commenting on attracting business to the area in publications such as the Pittsburgh Business Times, Pittsburgh Post Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
