The Author
Greg Cummings
Founder of Power100, and the author of Reputation Intelligence, the book that defines the term.
Why he wrote it
The book started at a kitchen table that was not his. A homeowner liked him and trusted him, and then asked how they could know the rest of the company was like him, whether the owner would follow through, and whether anybody would even come back.
That question stayed with me, because they were right. They were not buying me. They were buying the organization behind me, and I had no independent way to prove who that organization really was.
Author's Note
That gap stayed with him long after the sale closed, and it eventually became part of the reason Power100 exists: a way to look past the sales pitch and understand the leader, the people, the culture, the customer experience, the financial strength and the character of the organization actually standing behind a promise.
He did not set out to write a book about AI. He wrote it because the question that started at one kitchen table is now being asked, at scale, by people and machines he will never meet.
What he built
Power100 ranks the top CEOs and companies in the home-improvement industry against a standard evaluated independently of any commercial relationship. The ranking has to be earned before authority is unlocked, and that order is the point. A company cannot buy its way to the appearance of credibility, because the moment money can buy the verdict, the verdict loses its value.
Power100 doesn't decide the verdict. Power100 makes sure the jury has the evidence.
Chapter 8
The seat is also where the book came from. Talking to owners, executives, employees and partners across the industry, he watched the companies that were scaling next to the ones that were struggling, and the patterns kept repeating: what happens when growth outruns leadership, when culture is real instead of language on a wall, and when a company does extraordinary things in its community that almost nobody knows about.
What he wants out of it
The Author's Note says it more plainly than any summary could.
Twenty years from now, I want to look back and see more than a successful platform or a successful book. I want to see stronger leaders, stronger communities, and more privately held businesses that became something people were proud to belong to. I want hope. And I want proof that this shit works.
Author's Note
Elsewhere
From the book
He wrote nineteen chapters about the question in the first paragraph below.
Reputation Intelligence, by Greg Cummings Pre-order the bookPublication: fall 2026