Shaping the future - The imperative to evolve your business philosophy

Elena Lavezzi is the Head of southern Europe for Revolut.

She is Leading the growth of Southern Europe at the company. The goal of Revolut, is to become the world’s first truly global bank. 

Revolut is valued at over 5.5 billion, and they are on a mission to create the first fully global financial platform.

She is also a Unicef NextGen Founder and made the list of Forbes 100 Top Women in 2020.

We discuss:

• Scale-ups - she’s helped grow UBER, Circle and now Revolut, the first global fintech super app. 
• Seeing UBER grow from 100 people when she joined to 15,000 4 years later
• Startups vs corporates
• Her approach to increasing the customer base 
• Growing Revolut in southern Europe, where they rely more on cash than western Europe
• We also talk about Revolut’s goal to become the first fully global financial platform
• Female diversity in tech and finance 
• We also discuss books, mentors, mistakes and sport

Enjoy the chat. 

Book your place for:

Shaping The Future - The Imperative To Evolve Your Business Philosophy

We discuss:

The recent merger of CYBG and Virgin Money 

His approach to helping to run now, the 6th largest bank in the uk with 4000 employees, 6 million customers 

How their purpose helps unify both brands.

Covid 19 and the speed of digital transformation 

How the consumer has changed

Where innovation should happen 

Diversity and inclusion in financial services 

His favourite books, mistakes, mentors and some surprising facts about sheep.

enjoy the chat. 

She was Amnesty International’s first global digital director, the social and digital director for WPP’s media agencies in Asia Pacific and later a digital transformation director at the BBC.

She consults with organisations such as British Airways, Department for Education, Allianz, to support their transformation and future of work activities, and to help their leaders and employees thrive in the digital age. 

Alongside her digital leadership and change consulting she works with serial founder and chairman Felix Velarde at 2Y3X, where she coaches agencies to breakthrough plateaus and scale. 

She is a Trustee at ActionAid, where she was previously a member of the Digital Advisor Board.

This is one of the most fascinating and emotionally difficult interviews I’ve done. It’s one that i’m not really proud of. I totally messed up the interview and Martin rightly pulled me up on it mid recording.  

Martin talks about the flow state being critical to accessing your potential in all of life (including your creativity). 

I wasn’t in flow in the first part of the interview. I was following a script I had prepared as a result, i wasn’t being present to the conversation as i should have been. 

To my embarrassment, Martin noticed it and stopped the interview. The second half was then an entirely different experience. You will feel and hear the difference in the podcast.

Martin’s challenge to me was to publish the whole interview which obviously terrified me! 

I’m being very very vulnerable here in publishing it all! But this is a great example of flow (and 'not flow') in action. 

The more we get out of our own heads, let go our own structures & planning, and quieten the ego - the more we have access to flow in life and to unleash our true potential. I hope this recording inspires you to do the same. 

I’m gonna play our reflections after the interview first, were martin challenges me to publish it all, unedited, then the full interview will follow.

Don't judge me too harshly! enjoy the chat. 

Mettle is the free business account by NatWest that helps small businesses start, run and grow. built for startups, limited companies and sole traders.

We discuss:

-How she thinks about building high performing teams

-Mettle’s growth strategy

-How the consumer has changed as a result of covid 19

-Getting he mix right between Mettle and Natwest/RBS

-Where innovation should happen

-Online security 

-Race, Diversity and inclusion in banking and finance 

-Her favourite books, mentors, mistakes and much much more. 

Enjoy the chat.

We discuss

1. His start in financial services 
2. Being the CEO of Mettle Natwest’s response to challenger banks
3. The factors that have shaped the UK into the global leaders in the financial services it is today
4. Growing fintech start-up brands 
5. Building 11:FS into a leading challenger consultancy for the biggest financial services companies in the world 
6. His mentors, books, successes and failures and much much more

Enjoy the chat

They create and build new propositions, products, services and ventures that create the next era for you and your customers. 

clients include Volvo, Sky, Virgin Money just go down the list of some of the biggest companies in the world. 

We discuss:

• His legacy as group design director at Barclays when entrepreneurial banking was really taking off
• Rising complexity in corporates and how that stops innovation 
• why he doesn’t like the term innovation, he prefers evolution
• what businesses need to do themselves and where they should partner 
• Seizing new opportunities

Enjoy the chat.

His M&A work includes: 

1. Sale of ?What If! to Accenture 
2. Sale of Friday to PA Consulting (2018)
3. Sale of Market Gravity to Deloitte (2018)

We discuss:

1. We discuss why the M&A world is so hot right now
2. The factors driving agency M&A and who the key players are that agencies should be aware of
3. How to prepare your agency for sale one day
4. When to start planning for it
5. What a typical sale process looks like

Enjoy the chat.

He measures success by delivering exactly what the user needs wrapped in a compelling UX on time and on budget. 

We discussed:

1. How have their business continuity plans changed
2. What does that look like with an agency with 100 people?
3. How should we be thinking about scenario planning?
4. How his role has changed as CTO
5. How Omobono are thinking about sales and new business?
6. How do B2B salespeople sell in this environment?
7. Pitching/workshops
8. Digital transformation
9. Marcus’ silver linings

I started by asking him to explain his comment:

‘Most agency business continuity plans are not fit for purpose’.

Enjoy the chat.

They are a neuromarketing and neuroanalytics company that uses unique brain-imaging technology to measure how the brain responds to communications.

This allows them to deliver unique consumer insight, and reveal how a piece of design or advertising is affecting people at both a rational and an emotional level.

Enjoy the chat.

He is the co-author of the best-selling The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer and a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review and Forbes.

He has worked with some of the greatest thought leaders in both B2B and B2C sales and marketing and has worked with hundreds of senior executives across virtually every industry, geography, and go-to-market model.

We discuss:

1. How Gartner has innovated their own business over the years.
2. How B2B marketing is changing 
3. Streaming wars and keeping the customer at the centre of everything.

Enjoy the chat. 

Having read his award-winning book from cover to cover, we had to have a conversation with Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

He’s a leading light when it comes to innovation, focus, leadership, simplicity and execution. Firms like Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Pixar and Salesforce invite him to speak to their teams, not to mention his appearances at SXSW and the World Economic Forum.

Our chat with Greg uncovered some priceless perspectives that agency leaders can apply in their own lives and work, covering:

1. How a change of direction can be the secret to success
2. The pressing need for simplification in a world of endless distraction and complexity
3. Why it’s so hard to say no – and how to reprogramme your thinking so you can do it
4. How one agency super-specialised its offering, with stellar results
5. Digital minimalism and the importance of being bored

Enjoy the chat.

He was the former Managing director of AKQA New York then VP of International. He joined the agency when they had just 20 people, opened 10 offices and worked with some of the most iconic brands of the last 20 years. They sold the agency to WPP for only about 500 million.

He then became CEO of Publicis UK where he had his toughest test to date, working with a portfolio of 5 different brands who had their own way of doing things, didn’t want to play nice, Publicis was losing a lot of money at the time, he says, if it was a private company it would have closed ages ago. How he turned it around it really a remarkable achievement.

This is really a masterclass in getting people to align around a common vision and using EQ, emotional intelligence, not IQ to turn around a failing company.

If you are remotely interested in:

1. How to turn around a failing business
2. How to win new business
3. The crisis of innovation in marketing
4. Running small agencies to much much larger ones

You will find this conversation to be absolutely fascinating.

Enjoy the chat

He has been President of the IPA, Chair of the Judges for the Direct Jury at Cannes, and has spoken at TED Global. 

He writes regular columns for the Spectator, Market Leader and Impact, and also occasional pieces for Wired. He is the author of two books: 'The Wiki Man', available on Amazon at prices between £1.96 and £2,345.54, depending on whether the algorithm is having a bad day, and 'Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense'.