In a post-pandemic world, few senior executive positions have evolved as much as that of the chief marketing officer (CMO). In a tumultuous economic time, CMOs in the world of fintech are finding themselves in a brave new world in 2020.
One of the industries that has been influenced the most from the COVID-19 crisis is Fintech, which already had an impressive growth trajectory prior to the pandemic. According to Forbes, during 2019, global consumers accessed finance apps over a trillion times, conversion costs dropped by 76% and registration rates rose by more than 71% compared to the previous year.
In the Coronavirus pandemic, contactless personal finance isn’t just more convenient, it’s safer. Swiss financial services company, deVere Group, has reported a massive 72% spike in the use of its Fintech apps across Europe. Social distancing has forced us to manage our banking needs, make payments, insure our homes, vehicles, businesses and health, invest in the stock market, 100% online. This new reality presents a whole new realm of opportunity for fintech CMOs and requires a very specific set of skills.
Back in 2007, McKinsey and Co. correctly predicted that CMOs would assume a larger role as the “voice of the customer” across their companies. It also noted the difficulty of finding chief marketers with the full range of necessary skills needed to perform their roles.
Fast forward more than a decade –the role of the CMO continues to expand and shift with drastically changing times. The average tenure of a CMO is 4.1 years.
That’s the lowest tenure of all C-suite titles. Why? Largely, it’s as a result of the increasing complexity of the CMO role, which requires the right balance of left and right brain skills, says Caren Fleit, leader of Korn Ferry’s Global Marketing Officer Practice. In recent months, this flexibility has been further put to the test with stay at home orders keeping most, if not all strategic and creative projects taking place behind a screen.
Being a CMO requires a more diverse range of skills than being a marketing director or manager. In all likelihood, the requirements of the CMO job will only continue to become more complex in the next decade, as more technologies and methodologies are introduced.
So what skills do fintech CMOs need in order to be successful in a pandemic-stricken 2020?
Here are the 5 most important skills:
