Financial Services

financial services

Managing director, global head of marketing Goldman Sachs Asset Management Anouschka Elliott joined Goldman Sachs Asset Management in April 2022, following two years in the same role at rival firm UBS. There she transformed the perception of marketing from sales support function into business growth driver, securing the buy-in to invest in the brand at the asset management level for the first time. At Goldman Sachs, Elliott has once again used an evidence-based approach to secure brand investment from the board. “I took something from the Broadridge Fund Brand 50, where all asset management brands are ranked and valued, and I had an analyst do a correlation analysis between the strength of the brand and the actual fund flows. And we discovered there’s a 70% correlation between the two,” she explained. Although Goldman Sachs reported a 39% decline in net revenue for its asset and wealth management business in 2022 amid a tough economic climate, the business arm returned to growth in the first quarter of 2023. Net revenue grew 24% to $3.22bn (£2.51bn). Elliott is also a member of the IPA Effectiveness Leadership Group and a freeman of The Worshipful Company of Marketors community for marketers.■

Anouschka Elliott

Chief marketing & communications officer Apex Group Marketing at Apex Group is almost unrecognisable compared to nine years ago when Rosie Guest joined the business as its only marketer. Back then marketing was perceived solely as a sales support function, responsible for designing flyers and organising events. But that’s all changed. A flurry of M&A activity has seen the financial services provider grow from 300 employees to 12,000, spread across 94 offices worldwide. Guest has scaled the marketing team with it, building a centralised team of 50 people. At the same time, she has transformed the marketing function into a true strategic revenue engine and won herself a seat on the executive committee. Guest has also been instrumental in bringing more purpose into the corporate brand, with a particular focus on the issues of climate and gender equality. This year the business entered into a three-year sponsorship deal with global sailing league SailGP, which will see the two brands work together to empower female athletes using Apex Group’s own Women’s Accelerator programme, which was founded by Guest.■

Rosie Guest

CMO NatWest Group On joining NatWest Group in 2020, Margaret Jobling embarked on a mission to improve marketing’s credibility and bring genuine purpose into the brand. That culminated in the launch of the bank’s new brand platform, ‘Tomorrow Begins Today’, the following year. The platform has proved highly successful since, boosting consideration and awareness among key segments while growing market share in core focus areas. The latest campaign under the platform launched last summer, and Jobling has no plans to retire it any time soon. Arguing that “consistency is underrated”, Jobling has told her boss that “if for any reason I leave or fall under a bus, don’t change the advertising campaign, for god’s sake”. All this contributed towards a strong performance for NatWest Group in 2022, with pre-tax profit up more than a third to £5.1bn. Jobling is also an industry champion for marketing effectiveness, purpose and sustainability, leading her to being named Marketer of the Year at the 2022 Marketing Week Awards. She was also named president of ISBA, chair of judges for the 2023 IPA Effectiveness Accreditation scheme and is a mentor for the School of Marketing.■

Margaret Jobling

Rachel Kerrone

Ankit Khemka

Becky Moffat

Ben Rhodes

Dan Sherwood

Marketing director UK & EMEA Xero Now with three years under his belt leading marketing at Xero, John Coldicutt’s mission to grow the B2B brand shows no signs of slowing. The big focus for the last year has been women’s football, with Xero striking a five-year global sponsorship with FIFA in 2022, including the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Not long after, the brand unveiled a three-year partnership with the FA to sponsor the England Women’s senior team and England Football. According to Coldicutt, FIFA and the FA’s ambition to elevate the profile of women’s sport aligns with Xero’s own mission to level the playing field for small businesses. “That’s very much been part of Xero’s DNA, backing the underdog,” he told Marketing Week. In the midst of this brand-building push, Xero’s operating revenue grew 28% to $1.4bn (£1.09bn) over the year ending March 2023, with its subscriber count increasing by 470,000 to 3.74 million. Adjusted EBITDA rose 45% to $301.7m (£234.2m).■

John Coldicutt

Cath Keers

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CMO Sage Sage is one B2B business that understands the value of brand. With CMO Cath Keers at the helm for almost three years, the SME-focused financial software company last year launched a visual brand refresh, a new above-the-line campaign and its first-ever purpose statement: ‘To knock down barriers so everyone can thrive’. For Keers, the separation between B2B and B2C in marketing is nonsense. “For me, it’s actually about human to human. People buy from people,” she told Marketing Week. Sage therefore aims to connect with its customers on an emotional level with its marketing. According to Nielsen data, Sage increased its linear TV spend by 39% in 2022 to £13.4m, making it the second biggest B2B advertiser in the channel. In the six months to 31 March, overall sales and marketing spend rose by £16m year on year to £411m. CEO Steve Hare credited this investment with helping to drive double digit increases in revenue and profit over the period, with total revenue up 10% to £1.87bn and underlying operating profit up 14% to £227m.■

Director of brand & marketing Starling Bank Rachel Kerrone joined Starling in October 2017, just months after the digital bank first launched to the public. In the years since she has worked to build awareness of the brand, debuting it on TV in 2019 and launching its ‘Here to Change’ platform in 2021. Having achieved high awareness across the UK, last year Kerrone switched her focus to consideration. The shift has been successful, with Starling’s consideration score rising from 7.7 to 8.9 in 2022, according to YouGov’s BrandIndex. Starling’s most high-profile activity last year was its sponsorship of the UEFA Women’s Euro tournament, which helped the business maintain its customer acquisition numbers throughout the summer. The bank has since furthered its commitment towards gender equality in football, awarding £23,000 in grants to women’s grassroots teams and becoming Southampton FC Women’s official principal partner for the 2022/23 season. After first achieving profitability in early 2022, Starling reported a sixfold increase in pre-tax profits to a record £195m for the year to March 2023. The bank now has 3.6 million open accounts.■

Vice-president of marketing Revolut Ankit Khemka was no stranger to scaling challenger brands when he joined Revolut in 2021, having spent the previous three years leading growth at recipe box brand HelloFresh. Khemka was hired as the digital bank expanded its marketing capabilities, tasked with establishing its regional marketing leadership teams around the world and building the brand. Revolut unveiled its first major brand campaign in August last year. Led by TV and supported with activity across out-of-home, video-on-demand, digital channels and podcasts, the campaign aimed to overturn financial stereotypes and position Revolut as the bank of the “money underdog”. At the time, Khemka said: “My goal for the team was to make sure we reach almost everyone who is relevant or who is a probable Revolut customer. Let’s make sure we reach out to them and talk to them about what we’re trying to build.” Revolut has gained 1.8 million new retail customers in the UK since. The fintech’s global customer base now exceeds 30 million, with 400 million transactions processed each month.■

CMO HSBC UK Advancing HSBC UK’s purpose marketing strategy has been a core focus for Becky Moffat since her promotion to CMO in early 2021. With its global purpose platform, ‘Opening Up A World of Opportunity’, HSBC is on a mission to become a more culturally relevant brand. Last year the bank won the Marketing Week Award for diversity and inclusion in marketing with its ‘Vicious Circle’ campaign, which highlighted the struggle of financial exclusion for those without permanent homes. HSBC saw a 10% uplift in brand affinity following the campaign launch. Tackling domestic financial abuse is also a key focus for the brand, with every UK branch now a ‘Safe Space’ for victims to seek advice on securing financial independence. A national campaign launched in November to raise awareness of the initiative. Elsewhere, HSBC became the sponsor of Channel 4’s Formula 1 coverage this year. With idents that transform an airport baggage carousel into a Formula 1 track, Moffat said: “This sponsorship perfectly aligns to our purpose as an organisation, using our global connections to open up opportunities for our customers in the UK.”■

Group brand director Phoenix Group Hired in June 2021 as Phoenix Group’s first group brand director, Ben Rhodes was tasked with developing the business’s first group-wide strategy. Less than a year later the savings and retirement firm introduced a new multi-brand strategy and architecture for its business, reflected in a modernised visual identity. Purpose is now core to the corporate brand, which plans to use its scale to drive positive societal change while allowing its six individual brands the space to win in their own markets. Phoenix Group unveiled the next stage in its transformation this summer – its first-ever consumer focused campaign. ‘Let’s Get Talking’ aims to start a conversation around people’s pension worries, as research shows 17 million people will be affected by the pension savings gap in the UK. In doing so, Phoenix Group hopes to build enough trust in and awareness of its corporate brand to become “the Unilever of its category”. Despite a challenging economic backdrop, Phoenix Group delivered a strong set of financial results in 2022, with record new business growth of £1.2bn.■

Marketing director Santander UK Dan Sherwood knows the Santander UK brand inside out, having first joined the business 17 years ago as senior communications manager. After rising through the ranks, he became marketing director in May 2020. This year, Sherwood has turned his attention to Santander’s corporate and commercial banking arm, launching its first major campaign on TV in June, fronted by Succession star Brian Cox. Although awareness of the bank’s B2B offering is currently lower than its competitors, it scores highly on customer service, so Sherwood believes it is the right time to shout about the proposition. On the consumer side of the bank, Santander is sticking with its effective ‘Bank of Antandec’ campaign, which sees TV presenters Ant and Dec play fictional banking CEOs. The campaign previously drove the brand to its highest ever score for brand love. Santander UK’s total operating income rose by almost £500m in 2022, reaching £4.96bn. Sherwood is also an executive committee member at ISBA, a mentor with the School of Marketing and part of the National Advisory Group for The Children’s Hospital Charity.■

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