2023’s biggest people moves in financial services marketing

2023 saw several big appointments within financial services marketing. Here are some of the top stories of the year.

Lloyds Banking Group – CMO

In October, Lloyds Banking Group appointed Suresh Balaji as CMO, heading up the brand, marketing and experience function across the whole Lloyds brand portfolio.

He joined from Standard Chartered Bank, where he was Global Head of Marketing & Communications, based in Hong Kong. Prior to this, he worked at HSBC for over 17 years over a range of marketing leadership roles, ultimately rising to CMO for the Asia Pacific region.

Barclays – CMO

In September, Barclays appointed Nina Bibby as Group CMO. She was most recently SVP of Consumer Segment Marketing at Verizon, a position she held for just under two years.

From 2013 to 2021, she was CMO for O2, heading the marketing function as well as having commercial responsibility for the telco’s consumer and SMB mobile business in the UK.

Vanguard – Head of Marketing Europe

One of the most interesting appointments was Vanguard’s HR head Rebecca Bond taking over as Head of European Marketing.

She took over the role in January, having served for four years as Head of HR. She had been at Vanguard for almost 10 years, with previous roles including around two years as Marketing Services Manager and a year as Chief of Staff.

The role had been vacant since September 2022, when Laura Curtis stepped down after four years, during which she had presided over the V for Value campaign.

NatWest – CMO, Wealth

NatWest hired Mitesh Mistry as CMO for its wealth businesses in January. The remit includes private bank Coutts, as well as the wealth and asset management businesses.

He brought experience from both wealth management and retail banking. His most recent role was as Global Head of Marketing for Wealth Management at Schroders from 2020 to 2022.

Prior to this, he held the title of Global Head of Marketing at HSBC from 2018 to 2020 and at Barclays from 2013 to 2018.

HSBC Global Private Bank – Head of Marketing

HSBC Global Private Bank hired Trevor Isherwood as Head of Marketing in February. His previous role was as Global Head of Marketing at Titanbay, a digital platform founded in 2019 which allows investors to access private equity markets.

Prior to that he was the Marketing Director for Fidelity’s online investment service Fidelity Wealth Expert and head of Fidelity’s digital and content marketing strategy. He also formerly worked at UBS Wealth Management, heading up marketing for Europe and then emerging markets.

Skipton Building Society – Head of Marketing

Skipton Building Society appointed Nick Mortimer as Head of Marketing in April. From 2008 to 2017 he was Head of Brand, Marketing and E-commerce at Yorkshire Building Society, before heading up marketing at the Co-op’s Life Planning & Legal Services division.

His most recent previous role was at London & Country Mortgages, the UK’s largest online mortgage broker, which generated £15 billion in mortgage lending per year.

BlackRock – EMEA CMO

In July, BlackRock promoted its EMEA head of commercial marketing Claire Lane to overall Chief Marketing Officer for the region.

After joining BlackRock in 2017 as head of wealth marketing for EMEA, she then headed marketing for the iShares business from 2019 to 2020 for the same region. She had been EMEA head of commercial marketing since the beginning of 2021.

Before BlackRock, she held various marketing positions at Mastercard and Barclaycard.

Deutsche Bank – CMO

In April, Deutsche Bank appointed Tim Alexander as CMO and Head of Global Brand & Marketing.

His previous role was Chief Marketing and Chief Experience Officer at the private bank arm of Deutsche Bank, titles which he had held since 2017 and 2019 respectively.

Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, he worked in the telecoms industry, including Swisscom and Telefónica Germany. He also has experience of the automotive sector from Daimler and agency experience from SAATCHI & SAATCHI International.