Engaging Community Partners: Ideas for User Identification Badges

We are looking to reach out to our partners to have them more involved in the community, and after talking to my legal team, I would like a way to identify users in the community. Badges come to mind here, but I’m not sure that is the way to go. Ideally, I’d be able to see in your profile picture or your name some sort of identifier of whether you are in a startup, a partner, or a product manager, etc. This helps me know who I am talking to in the community and what other people they want to connect with. Anyone got any ideas or have done this successfully?