This session will explore how the role of the CMO is being reshaped by rising customer expectations, rapid advances in data and technology, and the increasing need for brands to act with clarity and purpose. It will examine why today’s CMO must operate as the organisation’s chief customer advocate, a driver of commercial growth, and a catalyst for cross functional transformation. The session will outline the skills, partnerships and mindsets required for CMOs to thrive in this next chapter - and why those who embrace this evolution will be best positioned to define the future of marketing.

Private equity is increasingly shaping the UK financial services landscape, bringing new opportunities, expectations, and pressures for marketing leaders. In this session we will explore how firms can prepare for investment, the role marketing plays in supporting valuation and deal readiness, how to manage communications through the transaction process, and what to expect post-acquisition. As businesses prepare to share the stage with private investment, how can marketing teams best navigate the rise of private equity and emerge unscathed on the other side?

In this fireside chat chaired by Mark Evans, David will reflect on his current role at Lloyds Banking Group, his philosophy and approach to marketing, and the learnings he has taken from his successful career across UK financial services.

Bradley will discuss the latest themes and thoughts around agentic AI. 

Kajsa will discuss her role as Director of Channel Marketing at Federated Hermes, where she leads global advertising, content and video strategy across multiple markets and distribution channels. From delivering integrated campaigns that balance brand and commercial objectives to building the channel marketing function from the ground up, she has shaped a team designed to support growth across intermediary and institutional audiences. In this session, she will reflect on what it takes to establish a high-performing channel marketing capability within a global asset manager, aligning stakeholders, defining strategy, embedding process and ensuring campaigns resonate locally whilst maintaining global consistency.

More than half of UK adults now ask AI platforms financial questions, most often about investment advice. And although they trust the answers less than they trust their own bank's website, they ask anyway. That gap between behaviour and trust is already reshaping financial services marketing, no matter which corner of the industry you're in. In fact, every brand in this room already has a customer talking to an uninvited shadow advisor (AI), whether that brand showed up in the conversation or not.

Wendi Sturgis, EVP, Global Sales at Yext, works directly with the banks, asset managers, and wealth firms already wrestling with this shift. She'll get the room up to speed on what's actually changing in how AI finds and represents financial brands, then walk through a framework for where the biggest opportunities are right now, plus a first-hand read on how fast financial services should really move on agentic AI. Come with questions, leave with a real plan.

In financial services, trust is not a soft metric. It shapes confidence, credibility, and commercial momentum. Yet senior marketers are now operating in a market crowded with AI-generated content, tighter scrutiny around data and compliance, and audiences that are quicker to question anything that feels generic or impersonal.

This session will explore why human connection is becoming a stronger differentiator for financial services brands and why live experiences are taking on a more strategic role in building trust with customers, stakeholders, and the wider market. Drawing on new research from Cvent and Censuswide, Nick Moore will examine how marketers can use AI to improve relevance and efficiency without losing authenticity, how stronger audience trust is earned over time, and how event impact can be measured more clearly when every investment is under pressure to prove its value.

As competition for wealthy clients continues to grow, understanding how to effectively segment, engage and build lasting relationships with high and ultra-high net worth individuals has become increasingly important to wealth managers. For this session, Kirsten will draw on both her consulting work and her time at UBS Wealth Management and RBC to explore the characteristics and concerns of HNW and UHNW clients, the strategies firms can use to reach them, and how marketers can deliver more relevant and personalised experiences to secure this desirable demographic.

If you needed any evidence to suggest why TV is definitely not dead then look no further than this case study that demonstrates how TV was put to the test not to deliver brand or even performance outcomes, but to effective CRM. Trumping all other traditional BTL channels and more than doubling ROI, Lloyds Bank leveraged data and tech to deliver propensity modelling, postcode targeting and inflight optimisation to support an always-on CRM campaign on television, putting Scottish Widows messaging into the front rooms of it’s B2B2C customers. This case study shows the power of TV as it delivered high return, broke the diminishing return curve pattern typical for TV advertising and created multiplicative outcomes for email and DM. This discussion outlines the organisational, compliance and data challenges that were overcome and how real-time closed loop measurement can be used to prove TV as the unlikely hero of CRM.

Details TBC

Distilling the career learnings from over 250 (yes, 250!) podcasts, Mark will explore what you can do when you're feeling lost in your career and want to figure out what's next. Whether you push for promotion, pivot industries, or even decide to start over, this session will empower you to think about what you want, and how you should go about getting it.