Why a Fortune 200 Hiring Executive Chose Colt Melrose, America's Best Headshot Photographer
Kimberly Moore, VP of Talent Acquisition at WM, reveals what she knows about professional presence—and why she invested in her own.
If you’re willing to admit that influence matters to you—deeply, personally—not for theory, but for results—you face a hard truth: your success depends on how well you deal with people. Power only matters when it connects to people.
Power doesn’t chase. We’re not here to impress. We’re here to be impressive. We’re not here to flatter. We’re here to be felt.
You don’t ask for attention. You don’t plead for respect. You simply exist in a way that demands it.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting results. Wanting their attention, their cooperation, their respect. If you didn’t want anything from others, influence wouldn’t matter. But you do. And that means your personal brand must be intentional—engineered and born from the ground up with a design only you can impose.
Kimberly Moore understands this. She’s spent her career on the other side of the table, deciding who gets in and who doesn’t.
"There are people, when you look them up on LinkedIn, it's kind of sketchy,"
The Gatekeeper's Perspective
When you spend your career deciding who gets the job, you learn exactly what makes someone look like they belong in the room—and what makes them look like they’re still waiting outside it.
As Vice President of Total Rewards and Talent Acquisition at WM—North America’s leading environmental solutions company serving nearly 20 million customers through 367 collection operations—Kimberly has spent years evaluating candidates before they ever walk through her door.
“When I’m researching potential business partners or vendors, I always check their online presence,” Kimberly says. “If someone doesn’t have a professional profile—or worse, no photo at all—it raises questions about credibility. In this day and age, I don’t even know if it’s a real person.”
She won’t mince words about profiles without photos: “I won’t even mess with that, because in this day and age, I don’t know if it’s a fake profile or not.”
This is the woman who controls access to Fortune 200 opportunities. And for over a decade, she was violating her own standards.
Frozen in Time
Kimberly’s headshot was more than ten years old.
She knew it. Every time someone clicked on her profile, she knew what they were seeing—a version of herself that no longer existed. A professional frozen in time, while her career had moved forward without her image.
“I had none,” she says bluntly when asked about her online presence before working with Colt. Not outdated. Not mediocre. None.
For someone who understands how quickly credibility is assessed online, this was more than ironic. It was the kind of quiet hypocrisy we all tolerate in ourselves—the gap between what we know matters and what we actually do about it.
She wasn’t courting attention. She wasn’t demanding respect. She was hoping no one would notice.
Then came the breaking point.
“I was in a job that I was unhappy with. I knew I needed to start looking. And I knew just with my background that people were going to start hitting my LinkedIn.”
The hunter was about to become the hunted. And she wasn’t ready to be found.
The Reluctant Subject
Here’s what makes Kimberly’s story different from most: she genuinely hates having her picture taken.
“I was a little self-conscious and I hate pictures. I don’t like any of that.”
This isn’t false modesty. This is a Fortune 200 executive admitting she’d rather do almost anything than stand in front of a camera. The discomfort. The awkwardness. The vulnerability of letting someone capture how you actually look versus how you imagine yourself.
But Kimberly had a unique challenge. She didn’t just need one look—she needed two. Professional shots sharp enough for the LinkedIn scrutiny she knew was coming, plus casual imagery for the businesses she owns with her husband.
She needed a photographer who could navigate both worlds. A friend who’d worked with Colt Melrose for their own professional headshots made the introduction.
What Changed in That Studio
Something unexpected happened when Kimberly arrived at Colt’s studio.
“Colt and Lindy make you feel at ease the second that you’re there, and you kind of forget what you’re doing.”
For someone who “hates pictures,” this is not a small thing. It’s the difference between a stiff, forced expression and the kind of natural presence that makes strangers on LinkedIn feel like they already know you.
“It was fun working with Colt.”
Fun? From the woman who dreaded the camera. That transformation—from resistance to relaxation—is where the real magic happens. Because the images that come from that place don’t look like typical corporate headshots. They look like a person you’d want to work with.
They look like someone who demands attention.
"I get compliments on my headshots all the time."
The After
“I get compliments on my headshots all the time.”
But Kimberly is honest about something most testimonials gloss over: she can’t point to a single moment where someone treated her differently because of her photos. There’s no dramatic story of a client who signed because of her LinkedIn image.
What she has instead is something quieter and perhaps more valuable: confidence.
“It certainly helps me feel more confident when people are out there scouting out my profile and things like that.”
This is what transformation actually looks like for most professionals. Not a sudden windfall. Not an overnight change in how the world responds. But a subtle, persistent shift in how you carry yourself when you know your visual presence matches your professional reality.
When you stop cringing at your own profile, you move differently. You reach out more. You hesitate less. You stop asking for attention and start commanding it.
You stop courting people and start building a brand others want to win over.
The Investment Question
When asked what she’d tell someone hesitating over the investment, Kimberly doesn’t flinch.
“For me, I wouldn’t hesitate to make the investment.”
Then she offers the perspective only someone in her position can give—the view from the other side of the hiring table:
“You’ve seen people out there, and when you look somebody up, and if the picture is 20 years old, it’s also questioning, you know—do they value their presence?”
This isn’t about vanity. Kimberly is clear on that. “People are not wanting to buy vanity. They want to buy your presence.”
And presence, in a world where first impressions happen in seconds, long before you ever shake hands, is either an asset or a liability. There is no neutral ground.
Three Years Later
Kimberly worked with Colt Melrose three years ago, and admitted something telling: “Honestly, I think I’m probably due for a headshot update again.”
Not because her current professional headshots are bad, but because she’s changed. Her focus has shifted. She has more responsibilities and different priorities. Her brand is evolving.
This is what professionals who understand visual branding know intuitively: your headshots aren’t a one-time event. It’s infrastructure that needs to evolve with you. Your personal brand must be intentional, engineered, and reimagined as you grow.
Kimberly gets it. She’s ready to strategize again on her personal brand and new professional headshots.
The Verdict from the Woman Who Decides
Kimberly Moore spends her professional life evaluating people before she ever meets them. She knows exactly what a weak online presence costs—not in abstract terms, but in real opportunities that never materialize because someone clicked away.
She applied those same standards to herself. She stopped tolerating the gap between who she had become and how she was showing up. She chose Colt Melrose because of his expertise, and it helped that he is regarded as one of America’s best headshot photographers.
And now, when the people evaluating her click on her profile, they find someone who looks like she belongs exactly where she is.
Someone who doesn’t ask for respect.
Someone who simply exists in a way that demands it. See for yourself.