Rhea Wessel

Frankfurt am Main, Houston

Writer and Founder at The Institute for Thought Leadership

Writer and Founder: The Institute for Thought Leadership. American writer and ideas coach based in Frankfurt.

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Articles

How A Corporate Influencer Program Can Feed Your Thought Leadership

22 hours ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

Enabling your subject-matter experts to find and articulate their best ideas is a win-win for the ... More employee and the company and can lead to a stronger thought-leadership pipeline. getty Last year at Europe’s biggest HR conference in Cologne, I spent several days immersing myself in the world of the corporate influencer program.
Private Markets Present a Lucrative Opportunity ‘Fraught With Peril’

2 days ago | planadviser.com | Rhea Wessel |Mallika Mitra

Ever since Empower Retirement LLC announced an initiative to offer private market investments within defined contribution 401(k) managed accounts, academics and others have been questioning the value and risks of such a move; just last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, publicly asked Empower for more details. Private investments raise complex questions for plan fiduciaries, particularly concerning due diligence, participant suitability, cost, transparency and legal risk.
AI And Thought Leadership: 4 Myths To Watch Out For

4 days ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

Close up woman hand writing on notebook . gettyThought leadership has never been more accessible—or more misunderstood. Tools like generative AI that democratize content creation have unleashed a tidal wave of content into our inboxes, feeds, and conference rooms. Entrepreneurs, executives, consultants, and experts are increasingly aware that visibility is key to growing their businesses.
Why Your Thought-Leadership Program Needs An Application Process

5 days ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

Stand out from the crowd and different concept , One glowing light man raising his hand got an idea ... More bulb among other people on light green pastel color background with reflections . 3D rendering. gettyYou’re rolling out a thought-leadership program at your company. You’re excited, your C-suite is supportive, and you’ve even secured budget for editorial support. Before you send out a call for ideas, pause.
Why Thought Leaders And Companies Need Journalistic Fact-Checking

1 month ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

Like it or not, businesses and thought leaders operate in an information ecosystem where willful lies and concocted conspiracies are amplified by algorithms. The public arena is dangerous. As a journalist and thought-leadership strategist, I have come to believe that the responsibility for maintaining truth and trust in the business and public arena no longer rests solely with journalists and fact-checkers.
AI, Writing, And The Importance Of Story Architecture

1 month ago | flipboard.com | Rhea Wessel

11 hours agoOpenAI's latest ChatGPT model, known as o3, has sparked concern after reportedly disobeying human instructions to shut down. According to The Telegraph, researchers claim the AI model actively sabotaged an automatic shutdown mechanism designed to turn it off. The incident has raised alarms among …
AI, Writing, And The Importance Of Story Architecture

1 month ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

A quiet shift is underway in the world of thought-leadership writing, one that is already shaping the way people create, edit, and judge content. That shift is the focus on story architecture instead of writing. Generative AI is flooding the content landscape with polished, plausible-sounding prose, and this is changing how people value and assess the ability to write.
Ideas Slipping Away? How To Catch Them On An Ideas Dashboard

1 month ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

In most companies, great ideas have a vanishing half-life. A consultant leaves a workshop with a spark. A project team wraps a phase and notices a pattern. A sales call reveals language that perfectly captures a client’s problem. And then—nothing. The idea fades. It doesn’t get logged. It doesn’t get tested. It certainly doesn’t make it into a point of view story, an article, or a client pitch. The insight vanishes as quickly as it arrived. And with it, the opportunity to lead.
A Project Debrief Strategy Is A Critical Tool For Thought Leadership

1 month ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

You wrapped up the project. You delivered the work. Maybe you even held a debrief to capture lessons learned. And then you moved on. But what if I told you that in those final conversations—the wrap-up call, the slide deck summary, the internal “what worked, what didn’t”—you left serious value on the table? Too often, organizations treat post-project debriefs as operational hygiene: a box to check before heading to the next engagement.
GenAI Content Is Everywhere. That’s Why Thought Leaders Must Go Deeper

1 month ago | forbes.com | Rhea Wessel

In a recent session for the Accelerator at Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs, the discussion about thought leadership moved swiftly from curiosity to concern. The focus of this special session I was leading was how to use AI to support thought leadership. But as we progressed, a more pressing issue emerged: In a world where AI-generated text is everywhere, how do we ensure our writing isn’t just another drop in the ocean?