Episode 2: Efi Naskou – on Zenus Bank, Lloyds, and PayPal
In this episode of the Financial Marketing Insights podcast, we interviewed Efi Naskou on her role as CMO at Zenus Bank, her background in financial services, and her passions for Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion, and AI.
Efi Naskou has been with Zenus Bank for the last couple of years. Zenus is a US digital bank providing retail and corporate banking, along with a fintech division offering payment solutions, banking as a service (BaaS), and card issuance services. As the Chief Marketing Officer, her responsibilities included overseeing all aspects of growing the brand, expanding the business, and driving revenue. She is about to exit the business and looks forward to taking some time off to spend time with her family, recharge, and prepare for the next exciting challenge.
Zenus Bank provides retail US bank accounts and B2B payment solutions. Typically, opening a US bank account requires being a US resident or citizen, but Zenus has a unique banking license that allows it to offer a true US bank account to people around the world. On the fintech side, Zenus offers technology and related services to other businesses that want to provide similar products to their clients. Zenus also has a strategic partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, being one of only seven US banks in this program. The commitments through this partnership include financial inclusion, gender equality, and reducing inequalities, and making access to US banking globally unique and exceptional. Zenus provides banking services to 180 countries, with accounts already in about 130 countries.
In her career, Efi has primarily worked in marketing. She started out working in a bank branch, became a branch manager, and then moved into fraud prevention, trying to find her calling at that time. Her first marketing job was at Lloyds Bank in 2007. Desperate to get into marketing, she had completed her Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) courses and was determined to pursue this field. She landed her first marketing role at Lloyds in the brand team during a major re-brand, providing exposure to various aspects of marketing and allowing her to travel to many branches and handle different tasks.
“I was pretty lucky to land my first role at Lloyds, and it was a super exciting time when I joined. Lloyds wanted to basically reposition at that point as a more current, more customer-focused bank. And I remember we refreshed the logo, you know, the iconic black horse, which has been with the brand since the 17th century, to become a bit slicker and modernized.”
After Lloyds, she worked in a professional services law firm for a few years, gaining valuable varied experience. She then decided to return to financial services, working at HSBC in several roles before moving to Barclays.
From Barclays, Efi transitioned to Mastercard, where she consulted for various entities that issue Mastercard accounts, credit cards, or debit cards, and those utilizing Mastercard technology. Mastercard positions itself as a technology business rather than just a card network, which broadened her horizons significantly.
Before joining Mastercard, Efi ran her own consultancy, working on diverse projects with both small clients and larger businesses. She helped fintechs launch into the market, introducing new products and propositions. Her career journey took her from traditional banking into marketing within large matrix organizations and banks. Through her freelance work and her role at Mastercard, she began engaging with smaller businesses and fintechs, finding the constant change and innovation in the fintech space particularly exciting.
Throughout her career, she intentionally moved around to explore various aspects of marketing and communications including mandatory communications in banks, handling tasks like sending out updated terms and conditions.
“I'm a total, you know, ‘curiosity and growth mindset’ person. I love learning. I always have, and I'm very curious about different things, basically, and different technologies and learning about different areas.”
Working in both small and large organizations, Efi gained exposure to different departments and roles. In smaller organizations, she experienced faster exposure, while larger businesses offered opportunities to move between teams, take on secondments, and work on small projects with other teams.
Innovation and Targeting at Zenus Bank
Efi finds it challenging to pick a favourite project from her career due to the broad variety of experiences. However, she highlights her latest project at Zenus Bank as particularly unique. Launching a bank or fintech is a rare opportunity, and this experience provided her with significant learning.
“I really enjoy going into roles where the job spec is almost like a blank sheet of paper or there is a lot of flexibility. Obviously there needs to be a goal always and a business strategy, but I love to work out a problem and then how we're going to get there strategically.”
At Zenus, she set up the marketing function, built the team, processes, and go-to-market strategies. Her role was broader, involving close collaboration with the CEO, founder, and other executives.
Zenus Bank launched and tested 49 different markets within a few months, a significant undertaking that earned several awards. Shortly after, they acquired a payments business, integrating it into the organization while simultaneously launching a fintech. This required big-picture thinking and decisions about brand architecture, whether to create a house of brands or a branded house, and how to manage potential brand clashes. The latest data shows Zenus has clients in 130 countries, highlighting the challenge of focusing and making strategic choices with such a broad market.
When faced with a global market, having more choices can make it harder to focus and select the right markets, pricing, propositions, and positioning, as these factors vary greatly depending on market development. This challenge is one that will stay with Efi forever.
A specific campaign that stands out is the launch of PayPal’s business proposition and the associated debit card in the UK. Efi was tasked with developing the go-to-market plan, first-year strategy, and customer experience to drive business card uptake and usage. She also ensured alignment with the broader PayPal product and existing marketing customer journeys to avoid clashes.
During the post-launch phase, Efi led an acquisition campaign to test previously excluded channels. This involved a targeted programmatic radio campaign, reaching 17 million people in the UK over three weeks. Additionally, an innovative direct mail (DM) campaign was executed, despite PayPal being fundamentally an online business. The campaign, called “The Complete Package,” involved sending a cardboard box resembling an Amazon package to about 80,000 eligible PayPal clients. Inside the box were the launch campaign messages, an image of the card, and its benefits. This DM campaign performed exceptionally well compared to email communications.
Targeting is complex due to the variety of products and markets. For the retail bank and US bank account, the focus was on markets with a true need for the product. Latin America was chosen initially due to currency fluctuations, making the US bank account particularly valuable.
Holding money in US dollars is invaluable, especially for sending and receiving money. Zenus Bank started narrowing down its focus based on this need and conducted thorough positioning work. They analyzed personas and potential customers to build a comprehensive go-to-market strategy. However, with a unique product and untested markets, testing was essential.
Zenus Bank was fortunate to be invited to Google’s accelerator program, which supports high-growth businesses. The Google Insight team provided valuable data on competitors, helping Zenus estimate acquisition costs for specific LATAM countries.
“So we based our budget and all our plans based on that figure. And that was based on market averages for similar things. We landed in the end after a number of weeks at a cost per acquisition (CPA) that was actually 88% less than that number, which is unbelievable. Obviously we were extremely happy with it. But it was incredible. Nobody expected it. Not even Google! And it could have gone the other way, but unless you experiment, it's really hard to know in the end.”
The Advent of AI
Currently, one of the biggest challenges is the rapid advancement of AI. Efi finds it frustrating that marketers constantly need to prove the value of their work to the business. While progress is being made, there is still much work to be done. Marketers need to demonstrate the return on investment. Experimentation and benchmarking are crucial, but proving value remains challenging.
“We need to be ‘CFO fluent’, and that is a big challenge and that is expected, not just from CMOs or leaders, but I feel it's expected from everybody in marketing, from a performance manager or someone working on social or whatever the channel is. We need to be able to show that. And I think that is really challenging, especially in a smaller business, because every dollar counts, every penny counts.”
AI innovation is a hot topic, with its rapid pace creating a sense of urgency to keep up. Efi is trying to stay informed and educate her team, despite the overwhelming amount of information and the fear and denial some people experience. AI affects everything, and while it has been integrated into products and services for years, generative AI is driving rapid growth and improvement.
The increasing use cases for AI make planning in marketing challenging. Without the ability to plan, marketers can feel lost, as the landscape is constantly changing. Up until now, many, including Efi and her peers, have adopted a ‘wait and watch’ approach. However, this phase should be over, and everyone needs to either experiment or implement AI, ideally both simultaneously.
Efi has been reading extensively on AI and cites a study from Capgemini Research Institute, which found that 58% of organizations are integrating generative AI into marketing, with minimal difference between B2B and B2C sectors. This challenges the misconception that AI is more suited for B2C. Additionally, 50% of surveyed businesses already have a dedicated budget for AI, and nearly half have formed dedicated teams within marketing to implement generative AI. The concern now is who will execute these tasks, highlighting the need for upskilling.
Having spent most of her career in large businesses like banks, Efi understands the difficulty of trialling new AI approaches. However, even big banks are building teams to create customized AI products. In fintech or smaller businesses, there is more agility and openness to experimentation.
“I created a thinktank within the business. I forced almost my whole team to go out and experiment with tools. And I had a weekly meeting where I said, I expect everybody to come back and tell me what tool you tested this week so we can share our knowledge and see if we can find tools that will make our jobs easier.”
In terms of digital transformation, Zenus Bank, being a Microsoft shop, was one of the first to adopt Microsoft Copilot. They tested it within the Microsoft suite of products, such as Microsoft Dynamics for CRM and sales modules, allowing for experimentation with robust tools rather than building custom solutions. Smaller businesses tend to be less risk-averse and more agile.
“Generative AI will augment human creativity in marketing. It won't replace it. So please, to anybody listening, don't be scared. It's just finding that right balance of generative AI and human engagement.”
This balance is crucial, as AI can free up time for more creative and strategic work. Measuring success is challenging, as it varies for different people. However, owning commercial reporting is essential for visibility and business growth.
Setting up OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) was crucial for Zenus Bank, providing an agile framework suitable for a smaller business reliant on funding. Unlike setting objectives at the beginning of the year and forgetting about them, OKRs involve a constant review cycle. The long-term goal is defined, followed by KPIs and measurable, trackable steps to achieve it. This approach was essential for tracking marketing activities and various tasks, such as establishing and growing the brand, building trust with audiences and investors, and tracking client acquisition and churn.
Efi emphasizes the importance of building trust in financial services, as potential clients are unlikely to open accounts with an unknown bank. Establishing brand credibility was the first task, followed by acquisition targets to demonstrate growth and health to investors. Tracking client acquisition, churn, and cost per acquisition was vital, especially since clients had not been with the bank long enough to measure lifetime value initially. Activities during the customer lifecycle, such as requesting a bank card, were supported to ensure engagement.
Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion, and AI
Efi is passionate about leadership, diversity and inclusion, and AI. On the leadership front, she views it as an ongoing journey to become the best leader possible, continuously learning through formal training and by surrounding herself with admirable leaders. She encourages others to take advantage of the abundant resources available today, such as podcasts and webinars, to accelerate their careers.
“It's about seeing others grow and seeing my team grow, it just gives me great joy. It's something that really makes me happy in any job, in any role. And building great teams that are happy and growing, then helps me deliver on the business objectives and grow the business that I work for. I also try to give back through mentoring wherever I can and supporting people when they ask for the support.”
Diversity and inclusion are also important to Efi, as they contribute to a richer, more innovative work environment. She believes in fostering an inclusive culture where diverse perspectives are valued.
Regarding AI, Efi acknowledges the rapid pace of innovation and the need to stay informed. She believes generative AI will augment human creativity in marketing, freeing up time for more strategic and creative work. The key is to find the right balance between AI and human engagement.
Efi Naskou finds great joy in building happy and growing teams, which in turn helps her achieve business objectives and grow the organizations she works for. She is committed to giving back through mentoring, supporting individuals whenever possible. As a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), she mentors through CIM and Thrive, a global non-profit for women.
Efi actively discusses diversity and inclusion (DI), emphasizing its importance whenever she has the opportunity. Research shows that diverse teams are more innovative and perform better financially, benefiting businesses, people, and clients. She believes that building diverse teams and technology is crucial for staying competitive. Efi is a founding member of the thinktank Women for AI Innovation Futures, in collaboration with Kingston Business School. This thinktank aims to empower leaders to harness generative AI for innovation and influence AI development and policymaking.
Efi continuously strives to become a better leader through formal training and learning from admired leaders. She encourages others to utilize the abundant resources available today, such as podcasts and webinars, to accelerate their careers. Seeing her team grow brings her immense satisfaction.
Efi draws inspiration from her environment and connections with people. She advises others to get out and speak to people: