Women in financial services: interview with Kate Thunnisen, CMO at NatWest Boxed
At Carter Murray, we connect marketing and sales professionals with exciting businesses across all sectors.
In this recent interview, Carter Murry spoke with Kate Thunnisen – CMO at NatWest Boxed, a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) offering that combines banking services with modern cloud technology.
Boxed enables businesses to easily integrate financial solutions into their platforms, such as digital wallets and lending options.
Kate is responsible for marketing to corporate and financial clients at NatWest and NatWest Boxed. She has many years of experience working globally, including New York, London and Hong Kong.
Before Boxed, she led marketing teams at other financial services companies such as Dealogic, AlphaSense and JPMorgan. Kate received an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College and worked at consulting firm McKinsey before heading to business school.
Can you tell us about your role and career to date?
I fell into marketing by accident. After business school I went into strategy and product management but found myself acting as “translator” between the sales and product teams. Which turned out to be a key part of what the marketing team did!
“I’ve found with the right people and processes (and attitude) you can have a real impact even in a big organisation.”
When I made the leap I really enjoyed it. The psychology of how you describe offerings, who you target and how you engage them was fascinating. From that point I followed interesting opportunities as roles appeared on my radar and I experienced different firm sizes, client types and parts of the marketing function.
You have worked in both established and scale-up businesses in financial services. Do you feel there is more opportunity to have an impact in a scale-up business?
The easy answer is yes, but there’s nuance. Of course, due to the smaller size of a scale-up, everyone gets a chance to be more involved and things usually move faster. You can see what you did last week affecting something this week.
“The people who get the great opportunities and do well in their career spend a lot less time churning out slides or excel spreadsheets and more time communicating.”
However, I’ve found with the right people and processes (and attitude) you can have a real impact even in a big organisation. It may be a bit different and likely a bit slower, but I’ve worked in some super large companies and could see my efforts take flight.
What advice would you tell your younger self and what is the most valuable lesson you have learned in your professional career?
Play golf! Or put another way: spend more time with people in the organisation and less time doing work alone at your desk.
That sounds strange but I think when starting our careers, we still have that “school mindset.” We show up at our jobs and do our homework to get that gold star. But in fact, I’ve found the people who get the great opportunities/promotions and do well in their career spend a lot less time churning out slides or excel spreadsheets and more time communicating, selling a vision (or themselves!), and building a powerful network.
“In industries that are still male-dominated, champion young women.”
Obviously you still have to do the work, but I remember in my first few years being disappointed after not getting a promotion yet working so hard, and this was the advice I got. It threw me but the more time I spend in my career, the more I think it’s excellent advice.
How do you think women in a senior marketing role can make a difference?
The same way they can make a difference in any senior role: provide a different point of view, be a visible role model and use their varied experiences to help the business and other employees. And in industries that are still male-dominated, champion young women.
What attributes do you think are most important for success and progression in a senior marketing role?
I find the hardest thing about being a marketing leader these days is the breadth of skills you’re expected to have.
“Don’t be scared to move laterally or to a new company if you think you’ll get something out of it.”
You must know how to run advertising campaigns, manage a brand, create amazing content (for every channel under the sun), liaise with sales teams and manage the media/comms. You’re expect to be a product expert and of course act as the voice of the customer and be tech savvy enough to understand complicated tech stacks… I could go on!
So I think my answer is: developing and working with a great team because there’s no way one person can be and do all that.
Financial services is still often viewed as a male-dominated world. Have you faced many obstacles as a woman in your career and if so, how have you overcome these?
Yes, especially in the beginning. Things have improved over the years (though still not perfect). Finding allies in the organisation can help, and of course having a strong friend/support network is great too.
What is the key advice you would give to marketing professionals looking to progress in their career?
One option is to work at a recognised marketing leader like P&G and develop your skills and experience.
Another is to try different marketing roles in your organisation so you learn more about the function.
Don’t be scared to move laterally or to a new company if you think you’ll get something out of it. I’d even suggest taking a sales role or product role at some point, since those teams are often marketing’s most important partners.
Read a lot, again not just about marketing but strategy plus technology and customer behaviour. And if you find a great mentor or boss, stick with them! I’ve been really lucky in that area and that’s definitely helped my career.
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