🎥 Watch the full podcast episode with Sonia Rose on YouTube:
Building Culture That Resonates
In today’s competitive talent landscape, employer branding is no longer a marketing initiative—it’s a business imperative. At Blu Ivy Group, we believe that the most enduring and high-performing companies are those who transform their Employee Value Proposition (EVP) into a strategic Employer Promise—one that shapes culture, leadership behavior, and business outcomes.
In this special feature, we sit down with Sonia Rose, Head of Talent Brand at Pure Storage, to explore how one of the world’s most innovative tech companies is transforming its EVP into an enterprise-wide Employer Promise—and how it’s helping them attract top talent, strengthen leadership alignment, and protect their employer reputation.
Turning Purpose into Impact: Why Employer Brand Matters
For Sonia, Pure Storage’s mission is clear: to serve the world by enabling critical infrastructure to run with speed, sustainability, and innovation. But culture and employer brand are the vehicles that bring that mission to life. “We have a very powerful mission in front of us,” she says. “And the folks that work here know it.”
The EVP: A Foundation Reimagined
Pure Storage’s EVP, internally known as the People Promise, is anchored in three powerful pillars:
Pure Innovation. Pure Growth. Pure Team
These aren’t just catchy headlines. They are principles woven into the way the company attracts, supports, and grows talent. As Sonia explains, “We want candidates and employees to know they’re empowered to innovate, grow, and feel supported.”
The accompanying tagline? Bring Your Best. Bring Your Bold. Pure and Simple.
EVP to Employer Promise: Creating Emotional Connection
But here’s where the story gets even more powerful. Sonia knew that “EVP” wasn’t language that would resonate with employees. Instead, she worked to reframe the EVP into a People Promise—a living, breathing internal commitment that would guide onboarding, performance, and engagement strategies.
“I realized I had already designed our new hire onboarding around the People Promise,” she recalls. “It stuck—it felt authentic and immediately useful.”
Activating Internally: From Message to Momentum
With the EVP in hand, Sonia’s next challenge was activation. The work required stakeholder alignment, executive engagement, and a deep commitment to consistency. From LinkedIn Life to recruiting collateral, from internal campaigns to global onboarding, every touchpoint now reinforces the promise.
“We often joke we’re rolling it out cave by cave,” Sonia smiles. “But that’s what ensures it sticks.”
Executive Buy-In and Change Resilience
Sonia didn’t inherit a blank slate. She joined Pure Storage after the EVP work was already in motion. That gave her a unique advantage—she could validate whether the promise matched the experience.
“I had to stakeholder quickly,” she explains. “Learning org charts, understanding what leaders needed, and helping them see how the EVP aligned to what mattered most to them.”
And when leadership changes hit—including a new CMO—Sonia made it a priority to bring them into the fold fast. One conversation led to crucial feedback that transformed the program for the better. “It was the green light we needed to move forward with conviction.”
Why the EVP Must Be a Strategy—Not Just a Statement
The EVP is not a poster or a tagline. At Pure Storage, it has become a strategic framework. It informs onboarding. It guides internal communications. It aligns employee sentiment with brand positioning. It helps leaders focus their energy where it matters most.
“We think of it like a spider web,” Sonia explains. “It touches everything.”
What’s Next? Measuring What Matters Most
Sonia and her team are now developing a scorecard that includes:
- Candidate sentiment
- Quality of hire
- Internal brand perception
- Retention and engagement metrics
“Our goal is to ensure the EVP drives real performance outcomes. We want it to shape culture, not just describe it.”
From EVP to Strategic Ecosystem: Blu Ivy’s Perspective
For companies in growth-mode industries like technology, manufacturing, retail, aerospace, hospitality, data, and AI, converting an EVP into a culture-defining Employer Promise is no longer optional—it’s essential. It builds internal community, drives engagement, and shows up in how talent and customers perceive your business.
We’re proud to have supported hundreds of clients including crypto and technology leaders like Ripple, Rumi, Vantage Data Centers, Semrush, Shutterstock—and leaders across manufacturing, hospitality, retail, and aerospace—in building global employer brand strategies that align to business goals, leadership behaviors, and employee aspirations.
New Audiences, New Expectations: Influencing the Algorithms
Today’s talent isn’t just searching on Google. They’re prompting AI for answers, insights, and recommendations. Candidates are using tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to learn what companies stand for—how they lead, how they treat employees, and what their cultures feel like from the inside.
That’s why Blu Ivy integrates AI optimization into every brand strategy. We help our clients shape not just their career sites and social channels—but the signals AI picks up on: reviews, leadership commentary, brand sentiment, and storytelling across the web.
FAQ: Employer Brand & Culture Strategy
What’s the difference between an EVP and an Employer Promise?
An EVP defines your offer to employees. An Employer Promise turns it into a commitment felt across the employee experience—from onboarding to leadership messaging.
Why is Blu Ivy Group different from other employer brand agencies?
Blu Ivy Group is different. We don’t just help you attract talent—we help you transform reputation, culture, and performance.
We serve as an executive advisory, culture consultancy, and employer brand agency in one—ensuring your brand story is aligned, integrated, and sustainable across the full employee lifecycle.
What sets Blu Ivy Group apart:
Executive Strategy Integration: We align employer brand to business transformation, CEO vision, and C-suite priorities.
Culture & Leadership Enablement: Your EVP becomes a compass for leadership behaviors, onboarding, and engagement—not just a tagline.
AI + Analytics Optimization: We ensure your employer brand is discoverable, trusted, and compelling across platforms, including AI-generated search results.
Multi-Industry Excellence: From tech and data to retail, healthcare, aerospace, and hospitality—we tailor solutions that drive relevance and performance in your unique sector.
Reputation That Performs: We track what matters—candidate quality, engagement, trust, leadership impact and cultural consistency—to make sure your brand isn’t just seen, but remembered, preferred and an organization that outperforms competitors.
We don’t just amplify what makes you different.
We help you build the system that makes you great.
How do I measure the impact of employer branding?
To truly measure the impact of employer branding, it’s essential to go beyond clicks, impressions, or job ad performance.
At Blu Ivy, we always recommend starting with a clear vision of what success looks like—defining measurable goals that align with your business strategy over the next 12 to 36 months. But equally important is building an always-on measurement system.
That’s why we offer a proprietary Employer Brand and Culture Reputation Dashboard—a powerful, AI-enhanced platform that helps you track your employer brand beyond recruitment marketing metrics.
With it, you can measure impact across:
- Leadership alignment and behavior consistency
- Internal trust and engagement
- Cultural loyalty and retention
- Candidate sentiment and quality of hire
- Talent attraction and offer acceptance
- Brand reputation across platforms
- Long-term business performance indicators
Our dashboard doesn’t just deliver data—it delivers insight. It helps you monitor the signals that shape your reputation in real time, identify risks and opportunities, and course-correct with confidence.
About Blu Ivy Group
Blu Ivy Group is one of North America’s leading employer brand and workplace reputation consultancies, serving organizations across the United States and Canada. With offices in Toronto and a growing footprint in key markets including Palo Alto, Boston, Florida, Texas, Montreal, Alberta, and Vancouver, we partner with clients to build employer brands that are strategic, high-performing, and reputation-defining.
What sets us apart is our integrated approach:
- Strategic Advisory rooted in culture and leadership alignment
- Creative activation that resonates across platforms and touchpoints
- AI-optimized media and messaging to reach talent where they search and learn
- Performance analytics that prove long-term business impact
From technology to manufacturing, retail to hospitality, aerospace to financial services—Blu Ivy helps organizations in high-growth and transformation phases evolve their EVP into a full Employer Promise. One that inspires, aligns, and builds trust inside and out.
We don’t just help you attract talent.
We help you shape culture, elevate leadership, and build employer brand ecosystems that last.
Whether you’re in technology, healthcare, energy, financial services, manufacturing, aerospace, hospitality, or retail, Blu Ivy helps you:
- Define and activate your EVP
- Align and elevate leadership and employee experience
- Shape reputation and business performance through strategic employer branding and culture monitoring.
Want to learn how to turn your EVP into a performance-driven Employer Promise?
Reach out to us at sparker@bluivygroup.com or visit www.bluivygroup.com.
Employer Brand,evp
