whoranks: LinkedIn ranking platform launches new year with six-figure investment
The LinkedIn ranking platform whoranks is launching into the new year with a comprehensive relaunch and investment, publishing the official “Top Personal Brands 2025” for Germany and Austria for the first time. At the center of the innovations is an innovative rating system designed to make LinkedIn performance objectively measurable.
With the new whoranks Score, the platform introduces a metric that goes beyond simple reach measurement. Unlike classical social media metrics, the Score considers not just the number of followers, but above all momentum, development, and actual performance of a personal brand over a longer period. “LinkedIn is becoming increasingly professional, but objective comparability is lacking. We want to make visible who really performs and who is building momentum right now,” say whoranks founders Emir Selimovic and Christoph Sprenger.
The system makes visible who continuously builds relevance, who stagnates despite large reach, and which profiles are taking off. Follower counts alone no longer count as a quality metric in 2025, since some profiles have millions of reach but generate hardly any real interaction.
Over 15,000 Personal Brands in Benchmarking
With now over 15,000 tracked personal brands, the platform offers one of the largest databases in the German-speaking world. Users can not only compare themselves with top performers, but specifically with industry colleagues, competitors, corporate influencers, and decision-makers from their sector.
Those not yet listed can add their own LinkedIn profile in seconds and immediately see how their personal brand is developing in comparison. With the relaunch, whoranks presents itself modernized, faster, and clearer, with the ambition to make personal branding as transparent as performance marketing.
Structural Growth: FlexCo Founding and Six-Figure Investment
Parallel to the relaunch, whoranks is also sending a strong structural signal: the company has been officially founded as a FlexCo and has received a six-figure investment. whoranks was founded by serial entrepreneurs Emir Selimovic and Christoph Sprenger, and is supported by successful scaleup founder Johannes Braith.
Top 10 Personal Brands Germany 2025
The Germany ranking shows a mix of entrepreneurial power, football starpower, top CEOs, and political prominence. The top positions are held by:
- Carsten Maschmeyer (Score: 8.3)
- Thomas Müller (Score: 8.1)
- Ola Källenius, CEO Mercedes-Benz (Score: 7.9)
- Roland Busch, CEO Siemens (Score: 7.9)
- Friedrich Merz, Federal Chancellor, CDU (Score: 7.8)
- Christian Klein, CEO SAP (Score: 7.8)
- Florian Palatini (Score: 7.8)
- Christian Lindner (Score: 7.7)
- Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (Score: 7.7)
- Lara Sophie Bothur (Score: 7.6)
Top 10 Personal Brands Austria 2025
Austria’s Top 10 shows that LinkedIn is long since not just “business blabla,” but a real channel of influence from politics to tech. The top positions:
- Mike Leber (Score: 7.8)
- Nana Janashia (Score: 7.4)
- Leila Gharani (Score: 7.1)
- Sebastian Kurz (Score: 6.7)
- Markus Hörndler (Score: 6.7)
- Ali Mahlodji (Score: 6.7)
- Annette Mann, CEO Austrian Airlines (Score: 6.7)
- Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General, IAEA (Score: 6.4)
- Pascal Biese (Score: 6.4)
- Elli Köstinger (Score: 6.3)
The complete Top 50 rankings for Austria and Germany can be viewed on the whoranks website. Users can also retrieve their own current ranking there.
