Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Leo Popik. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Leo, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I started my company, I knew whom I desired to serve and how. I wanted to help the leaders of small and midsize businesses succeed by making them feel a part of a community of peers they could count on for meaningful support.

My first decision was to have the word “Peers” in the company’s name and brand. That was a unique decision in our industry. The most recognized organizations in our space didn’t feature the word “Peers” in their brand, so we would certainly stand out.

After I had settled on having the word “Peers” in the company name, I set out to find one more word that would complete the name. This second word needed to define what type of peers we were serving. The top options were: “Leader”, “CEOs”, “Owner”, or “Entrepreneur”? I discarded “Owner” and “Entrepreneur” because many people that define themselves that way aren’t CEOs; they might own or start companies but not have any responsibility in their day-to-day operations. I knew that the community I was building would be only for the top decision-maker of a company, the person with the utmost responsibility to serve all the company’s stakeholders.

I wanted to build a community for leaders who wanted to develop their leadership skills. The problem is that “Leadership Peers” and “Leader Peers” did not sound good to me. I considered going with “CEO Peers,” but the internet domain CEOpeers.com was already registered, and I wanted a URL that would have our company’s name and end with .com.

When I expressed my frustration to my wife, she suggested the word “Leading”—this word resonated with me immediately. Not only does this word capture that the organization is for leaders; but it also captures that they need to be actively involved in a leadership position in the present.

What I love about the word “leading” is that it evokes in my mind the work I’ve done since my youth in leadership development. My life’s quest has been to become a servant leader, which I believe is the ultimate form of leadership. And I wanted to bring servant leadership into the mission of our organization.

A bonus of “Leading Peers” is that the acronym (LP) is one I have used my whole life because my name is Leo Popik. So, I’d written my initials thousands of times, and I’d grown so used to it that it felt natural to use that two-letter sequence. It would make me feel more skin in the game to give the company a name that somehow felt intertwined with mine. We care more about what we consider a part of our identity. And I wanted to care about this new company that I was starting deeply.

I resolved to keep the word “CEO” in the company’s mission, tagline, and elevator pitch, so we could be very specific about the profile of our community’s members. Our mission is to help CEOs succeed so their people and businesses prosper. Our tagline is “The Premier CEO Community.” And our elevator pitch is, “Leading Peers is the community for CEOs to connect and collaborate to grow their businesses.

Our name captures what mattered most to me in just two short words. We don’t require that our members own equity in their companies, but CEOs tend to have ownership interests. And we don’t need that our members be founders, but CEOs tend to be company founders in small and midsize companies. So, our name and tagline have attracted business founders, entrepreneurs, and owners leading their companies as CEO.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

In 2003, as I turned 30, I launched a company, with no prior business experience, out of a personal need to provide for myself financially while building a career in public service in Argentina.

Over the following 17 years, my professional career revolved around serving that company as a CEO. Over that period, my international-corporate-events company grew to over forty full-time employees working in ten countries.

Despite not having any business experience before starting my company, I met some wonderful people who helped me along the way, some of whom were business CEOs who gave me invaluable support.

When the Covid-19 pandemic put my company on pause in 2020, I stopped to think about how much I wanted to give that same support to other CEOs, unlocking the power of community for them. I wanted to help CEOs succeed in serving their people and businesses and living their best lives.

Leading Peers members receive our five core services, which are:

1. Peer Advisory Boards led by one of our accredited facilitators, where members discuss their challenges openly in a safe space and build deep and enduring relationships with trusted peers.

2. One-on-one Coaching to gain insights from CEO peers and strengthen their relationships with their board colleagues.

3. Connecting Peers Events, where our members build and strengthen meaningful relationships with their peers.

4. Online chats, where members can exchange information, ideas, resources, feedback, and support.

5. Training Summits, where we empower our members with ideas, tips, tools, and experts to propel their success.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

We’ve built our reputation within our market by focusing on the value we deliver to our members through the following actions.

We’ve carefully vetted applicants to ensure they met the established criteria to enter, had the right motivations to join, and understood their commitments as members.

We’ve selected Peer Board Leaders with the professional experience, facilitation skills, and values we stand for.

We’ve assigned our members to peer boards carefully, making changes in the composition of our peer boards when needed to improve their effectiveness.

We’ve selected the right experts and guided them effectively to create powerful educational workshops for CEOs.

We’ve created a user-friendly online portal that has made our Library, Directory, and other resources available to our members.

We’ve employed an app that has made it practical for our members to exchange ideas, information, insights, resources, and encouragement.

We’ve created in-person events that have helped our members experience the power of networking beyond their peer advisory boards to develop other meaningful relationships within our community.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients has been our members’ referrals. That’s because our members understand the value we provide and whom we benefit more than anyone else.

Our members are generous people. So, they tend to think of other people they know who would benefit from joining our community.

We vet our members to ensure they are generous, so they’ll collaborate with others. Upon filling out the application, they pledge to honor our values: trust, personal relationships, accountability, giving, lifelong learning, social responsibility, excellence, and gratitude.

When a prospect is referred to us by one of our members, we know the likelihood that they’ll apply and become a long-term member are much greater than if they had found out about us in any other way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.LeadingPeers.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadingpeers/?viewAsMember=true
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSSN4E5nWxySYLp_LoE9zSA

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