Full Name: Channel V Media (LINK)
Job Title & Company: Channel V Media
Award Category shortlisted for: PR Agency of the Year
Social handles (LinkedIn / Twitter / Company): LinkedIn; Instagram
How does it feel to be shortlisted for the 2026 Financial Promoter Awards USA?
Being recognized by an organization that understands the complexity and context of the financial services vertical carries weight. FS is one of those industries where PR has to work differently because of complex products, regulated markets, audiences with fundamentally different needs. Standing out in this field is a challenge, and it’s an honor to be recognized for doing it.
What does this recognition mean to you/your team/your organisation?
It reinforces something we’ve built toward for a long time: that PR done with real strategic intent is one of the most underutilized growth tools in financial services. Most programs still get measured on press volume; this recognition reflects a more sophisticated standard: what actually changed for the client. That’s the question we hold all of our work to.
What part of your work/campaign/team effort are you most proud of?
The work we’re most proud of is the kind that creates a category rather than just covers one: where we don’t just get a client into a conversation, we make them the reason that conversation exists. The results that follow are different: Page 1 search rankings, closed deals traced back to specific coverage, executives who get called by reporters instead of the other way around. That’s the standard we build toward with every program.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in delivering this (project/team achievement/initiative) – and how did you overcome it?
The challenge that keeps evolving is making sure earned media’s impact follows the narrative into the places where it now does the most work, which increasingly means inside AI engines. Traditional media accounts for the largest share of how AI engines construct brand narratives, and most PR programs weren’t designed with that in mind. We had to build the infrastructure to address it, and that’s now central to how we run every client program.
How do you see marketing and communications evolving in financial services over the next few years?
If a company hasn’t built a clear, deliberate narrative and gotten it validated through credible third-party sources, AI is assembling one for them from whatever fragments it can find, and that’s happening right now, for every company. The shift for our field is that every placement now has a dual impact: it reaches the human audience who reads it, and it shapes the AI narrative that reaches every subsequent audience from that point forward. You can’t buy your way into an AI narrative the way you can buy a Google ad: you have to earn it.
If you could give one piece of advice to others entering these awards in the future, what would it be?
Show what changed, not just what happened. The strongest strategy isn’t the one with the most coverage, it’s the one where you can say the market understood your client differently after your work than it did before. That’s a harder story to tell, but it’s the only one that holds up in a room full of people who understand what this discipline actually requires.
Are you excited for the gala in June? What are you most looking forward to about the evening?
The financial services communication and marketing ecosystem is specific enough that the people who do it well tend to know each other’s work, and those are the conversations worth having. We’re looking forward to being in the room with our colleagues on July 18.
How do you and/or your team celebrate success (big or small)?
There’s always a debrief, we’re genuinely curious about what made something work, and that conversation usually happens over dinner or a round of drinks. But we also enjoy celebrating all of our wins. Our work is intense, so when it lands, we celebrate.