The Influence Forge

The Influence Forge is a bespoke consulting practice for Founders and CXOs who need real executive presence. Behind the work sit two decades in marketing and public-markets investing — brand equity, digital and social, and the investor-relations side most branding people have never touched. Hire us if you want operators who've actually done it, fully engaged on how you show up inside and outside the company.

What we do

We work with two kinds of people.

Founders. Every new-age brand you can name has a founder living on your feed — part charismatic, part irritating, always there. If that presence is a real part of your company's brand and you want it built and scaled with taste, that's our job. We're selective right now: Series C already in the bank, an IPO in view inside three years.

CXOs. You're at a listed or private firm and you want the top seat. The execution chops are a given — so are your rivals'. What separates you won't be another quarter of hitting targets; it's a persona your board and the market actually remember. We build that.

Who you're working with

The Influence Forge is headed by Karan Rajpal — a marketing executive and public-markets investor with twenty years behind him. He's run marketing strategy for marquee global brands, has run businesses for over a decade, invested through public markets, and built a following of his own along the way. Founder, marketer, investor, writer: the odd mix executive presence actually calls for.

Why us

The pitch is simple, which is exactly why everyone makes it. The work isn't.

The skill is unusual. Ad agencies and PR firms are built around their traditional craft — staffed and priced to maximise billings. Executive presence is bespoke work that scales one person at a time. Different muscle entirely.

The attention is specific. Presence isn't hocking your brand, posting GMV updates, or hot takes on your sector. It's the sum of you, made legible — and nobody on your marketing team, in-house or agency, is actually watching that. With us, you're not line item 42 on the annual plan.

We compound, we don't scale. Together we'll do things that don't scale. No promises of a million followers or fifty posts a week. A small, tasteful set of outcomes that position you the way you've earned. We won't scale. We'll compound.

Nerds need nerds. Your day is one long code-switch — sales numbers, CAC, brand campaigns, the investor deck — and no single team follows you across all of it. We do. Everyone needs someone who gets the whole picture. You'll find we're that someone.

And there's Karan himself

Beyond the services, Karan stays close — straight advice on marketing, social, performance and internal comms, all of it earned from having actually run brands. As an investor, he'll sharpen your materials for VCs, PE funds and public-market money. He's factual, he'll push back, and he's earned the right to. When he helps you finish a piece of communication, what comes out is clear, a little unexpected, and worth believing in.