As fintech matures into an increasingly competitive and sophisticated sector, marketing leaders are facing a delicate balancing act between innovation, trust and commercial performance.
For Isabelle Duarte, Chief Marketing Officer at Soldo, success comes down to combining creativity with discipline, building memorable brands while ensuring every campaign is grounded in genuine customer insight.
Having spent more than two decades developing marketing strategies for technology companies, Duarte joined fintech through her role at Soldo and quickly recognised the unique challenges that exist at the intersection of finance, product and commercial strategy.
“What’s always drawn me to marketing is the mix of creativity and problem-solving,” she said.
“I enjoy working in businesses where marketing sits at the intersection of finance, product, operations and commercial strategy because that’s often where the most interesting challenges are.”
That cross-functional mindset continues to shape her approach as fintech brands navigate rapidly changing customer expectations and an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Distinctive but credible
For Duarte, one of the most important priorities for fintech marketers today is ensuring brands are both memorable and trustworthy.
“A lot of fintech brands still play it safe,” she said. “Being visually distinctive is important, particularly in such a crowded market, but being memorable is only part of it.”
Alongside creative differentiation, she believes marketing leaders must remain disciplined in how they test and develop campaigns.
“We spend a lot of time testing campaigns and messaging with customers before we launch anything new,” she explained. “If something doesn’t resonate, we stop and rework it until it does.”
That commitment to research is increasingly important as customers evaluate financial services firms against the best digital experiences available across all industries, rather than against financial institutions alone.
“Customers don’t just judge financial brands against other financial brands anymore,” Duarte said. “They judge them against the best digital experiences they have anywhere, and that’s raised the bar significantly.”
At the same time, growing concerns around fraud, data security and artificial intelligence are making trust harder to earn and easier to lose.
“Customers want confidence that companies are innovating responsibly,” she said. “They want convenience, but not at the expense of security or transparency.”
The balancing act between brand and performance
As marketing budgets continue to face scrutiny, many CMOs are under pressure to demonstrate both immediate commercial impact and long-term brand value.
Duarte describes the relationship between performance marketing and brand building as a constant balancing act.
“Performance marketing never really stops,” she said. “You’re continuously testing and optimising based on what audiences respond best to.”
Brand building, however, requires a different mindset.
“It’s slower and more deliberate,” she explained. “You need space to reflect and test ideas properly, and often need to resist the temptation to chase immediate results.”
Rather than viewing the two disciplines as competing priorities, Duarte believes the strongest marketing functions integrate them closely.
“Strong brand building makes performance marketing more effective, while performance activity gives marketers valuable insight into what’s resonating with audiences in real time.”
Progressive finance and enterprise storytelling
Among the campaigns Duarte is most proud of is Soldo’s 2024 Progressive Finance campaign, which was designed to strengthen engagement with larger enterprise organisations and senior financial decision-makers.
The campaign sought to position Soldo as both innovative and credible while broadening conversations beyond product features alone.
“The objective was to strengthen our storytelling and build credibility with senior financial decision-makers,” she said.
The campaign used the term “progressive” as its central theme, which was not without risk.
“I had plenty of people advise against it,” Duarte admitted. “But we trusted our instincts and pressure-tested the messaging thoroughly before launch.”
The campaign ultimately resonated because it reflected the reality facing many finance leaders today.
“CFOs are cautious by nature, but they also want to progress,” she said. “The campaign acknowledged that ambition without framing transformation as chaos or disruption for the sake of it.”
According to Duarte, the initiative helped Soldo demonstrate innovation while reinforcing trust and credibility among its target audience.
AI’s growing influence on marketing
Like many marketing leaders, Duarte sees artificial intelligence as one of the most significant forces reshaping the profession.
“One of the biggest challenges is how quickly AI is transforming our profession and the expectations of what marketing teams can deliver,” she said.
While AI is already driving substantial efficiency gains, she cautions against viewing it as a replacement for strategic thinking.
“If your positioning, strategy or understanding of your customer is weak, AI just helps you produce mediocre work faster.”
She also believes marketers face an important skills challenge as the technology becomes more widely adopted.
“Some marketers are eager to experiment but haven’t yet developed the instinct to know what good looks like,” Duarte said. “Others are more experienced but understandably cautious about how quickly things are evolving.”
For organisations looking to benefit from AI, she believes the key lies in treating it as an enabler rather than a shortcut.
Leading through rapid change
Effective leadership, Duarte argues, becomes most visible during periods of uncertainty and rapid growth.
“For me, effective marketing leadership comes down to resilience and the ability to stay calm under pressure,” she said.
While businesses often need to adapt quickly, she warns against reacting impulsively to short-term pressures or internal noise.
“The way I approach those situations is to remove as much emotion as possible, focus on the data, and stay very clear on the short-term goals we’re trying to achieve.”
At the same time, leaders must continue to provide clarity and confidence for their teams.
“People don’t expect leaders to have every answer immediately,” Duarte said. “But they do expect consistency, direction and good judgement.”
The future belongs to distinctive brands
Looking ahead, Duarte expects AI to transform how marketing is executed, but believes human creativity and judgement will become even more valuable as a result.
“We’re going to see an enormous amount of highly optimised content,” she said. “That means genuinely distinctive brands will matter more than ever.”
She believes smaller firms could benefit significantly as AI lowers the barriers to producing sophisticated campaigns that previously required far larger teams and budgets.
However, she rejects the idea that marketing will become less human.
“If anything, judgement and originality become even more important,” Duarte said.
“The companies that succeed will be the ones using AI thoughtfully, while still maintaining a very clear human perspective.”
For marketers considering a career in fintech, her advice is simple: understand the business beyond the marketing function itself.
“The more you understand how a company operates, and what its customers are trying to achieve, the better equipped you will be to create marketing that genuinely resonates,” she said.
“Success comes to those who can continue to learn and adapt, while staying focused on delivering value regardless of how the landscape evolves.”