This week on the Lead With Your Brand podcast, Jayzen Patria challenges listeners to think about their network not as a contact list, but as one of the most powerful amplifiers of their career brand.
It is not enough to deliver great work, build a strong reputation, and know what you stand for. If no one sees it, hears it, or can speak to your value when you are not in the room, your brand can only go so far.
Inspired by a recent trip to New York and a reconnection with this week’s guest, Andrew Turner, Jayzen breaks down how to keep your network alive with intention. Jayzen also explores how self-similarity bias and proximity bias can quietly shrink your professional world. It is easy to spend time with the people who look like you, think like you, work near you, or sit in the same functional lane. But the strongest career networks are built by intentionally reaching beyond the familiar.
To help listeners put this into action, Jayzen shares practical tools, including creating a personal network “treasure map,” asking for AIR (Advice, Insights, and Recommendations) as an easy way to reconnect, and treating LinkedIn as technology that powers your professional network, not just another social media platform.
The challenge is clear - do not just build your network. Keep the embers alive.
Key Takeaways:
Your network is not just a list of people you know; it is a system of influencers who can amplify your brand
Self-similarity bias and proximity bias can limit your network if you do not intentionally break out of them
Use a network treasure map to diagnose where you already have strong connections and where you need to build new ones
AIR (Advice, Insights, and Recommendations) is a simple, authentic model to reconnect without making it feel awkward
LinkedIn only works if you are active. Like, comment, post, and show up consistently so your brand stays top of mind
Jayzen is joined by Andrew Turner, Employee Engagement Director for Diageo North America. Andrew’s career is a powerful example of how your passions and past experiences can become a differentiator in the work you do today.
A classically trained actor and self-described “reformed actor,” Andrew has built a career helping major organizations connect with employees through communications, culture, and engagement. From Universal Studios and NBCUniversal to Travelers and now Diageo, Andrew shares how he learned to meet audiences where they are, create community inside large companies, and bring creativity, storytelling, and performance into corporate life.
Guest Bio
Andrew Turner, Employee Engagement Director, Diageo North America
Andrew Turner is an experienced employee engagement and communications leader who’s spent his career helping large organizations connect more meaningfully with their people. As Employee Engagement Director for North America at Diageo, he leads strategies that bring the company’s culture, purpose, and performance ambitions to life—making sure employees feel informed, involved, and motivated to play their part. He’s particularly focused on strengthening a sense of ownership and pride across the business, while finding creative ways to tell the stories behind Diageo’s brands and people.
Andrew is known for turning complex ideas into clear, engaging communication that actually resonates. Before joining Diageo, he held senior roles at Travelers, where he helped modernize internal communications for a 30,000-person workforce, and at NBCUniversal, where he spent over a decade leading global engagement efforts, executive messaging, and large-scale change communications. He started his career at Universal Studios, working at the intersection of communications and digital during a time when companies were just beginning to rethink how they connect with employees online.
What sets Andrew apart is his belief that culture isn’t just something you talk about - it’s something you actively shape. He brings a mix of strategic thinking and storytelling to his work, helping organizations build environments where people feel connected, valued, and ready to contribute. He holds a degree from Boston College and completed postgraduate studies at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, which explains his natural instinct for a good story.