Executive branders also frequently advise C.E.O.’s to write books to further solidify their brands. Leslie Gaines-Ross, the chief reputation strategist for P.R. firm Weber Shandwick, points to Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, by Howard Schultz of Starbucks, as a platform that helped established Schultz as a C.E.O. with vision and values and Virgin Group C.E.O. Richard Branson’s book Business the Richard Branson Way, which cemented Branson’s reputation as a bold risk-taker.

Some dismiss the emphasis on reputational and branding services as just another ploy by P.R. consultants to increase their billable hours.

“Public relations professionals are trying to increase the level of responsibility they are getting from clients every day,” says Keith O’Brien, editor-in-chief of the industry publication PR Week.

And others take issue with the very notion of building C.E.O. brands, saying that it places too much emphasis on a single irreplaceable executive at the expense of a longer-lasting culture and team.

“The difference between a religion and cult is that a religion survives after the leader dies,” says Rakesh Khurana, an associate professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic C.E.O.’s. According to Khurana, the current overemphasis on C.E.O. personality has led to excessive compensation, weak governance, and “the triumph of celebrity over substance.”

Still, the media’s focus on personality is not likely to abate anytime soon, meaning the emphasis on executive branding is likely to continue to grow.

“The whole topic of reputation in the past 10 years is radioactive—it’s exploded,” says Gaines-Ross.