In financial services, communications is often viewed as secondary to the product itself, something companies prioritise only when they want investor attention, media visibility or support during difficult moments.
For Valentina Drofa, founder and CEO of Drofa Comms, that approach overlooks the long-term role communication plays in building credibility and trust.
“Reputation is not built on demand,” she told Financial Promoter. “It’s built consistently over time, and you can’t manufacture a track record overnight.”
Drofa’s route into financial communications did not begin with a traditional agency blueprint. Her background spans financial education, brokerage services and online learning, long before fintech and marcomms became crowded sectors.
What emerged from that experience was not just an agency, but a specialist business built around a deep understanding of financial markets and the language surrounding them.
“We were a niche agency before niche agencies were considered a strategy,” she says. “We worked only in financial services, turned down everything outside it, and spoke the language from day one.”
From financial education to communications strategy
Before launching Drofa Comms, Drofa spent years working within financial education initiatives, beginning at a brokerage firm in 2007 where she eventually led its education centre.
“The demand for financial literacy was very real,” she explains. “That eventually led me to launch my own distance learning platform.”
What started as educational content soon evolved into something broader. Financial firms began requesting conferences, books, media projects and strategic communications support alongside educational services.
“Instead of saying no, I kept saying: ‘Sure, let’s do it.’ At some point, that became the business.”
That organic growth shaped the agency’s identity early on. Unlike generalist firms entering finance later, Drofa Comms built itself entirely within the sector.
“Clients didn’t need to explain the industry to us first. We already understood the context, the regulations, the language and the audience.”
Knowing when to say no
As both the company and the wider financial landscape evolved, Drofa says one of the most important changes was becoming more selective about the clients the agency worked with.
“There was a period where we worked with companies in high-risk trading sectors,” she says. “We made a very deliberate decision to move away from that.”
For Drofa, growth has not simply been about scale, but alignment.
“Every few years, we revisit what our ideal client looks like and let go of those who no longer fit. Early on, you can’t always afford to do that because you need every contract. But eventually, the ability to choose shapes the company more than any market trend.”
That approach is tied closely to the values she says still guide the business today.
“Many companies put values on their websites and never look at them again. For me, they’re what I check decisions against, especially the uncomfortable ones.”
Those moments, she argues, define a company’s long-term identity far more than isolated successes.
“A client that doesn’t fit, a project that feels wrong, a direction that may be profitable but isn’t right for the business, values give you a reference point when those decisions become difficult.”
Why financial firms still misunderstand communications
Despite the growing sophistication of financial services marketing, Drofa believes many firms still misunderstand the role communications actually plays.
“The biggest mistake is waiting too long to start,” she says. “Companies stay invisible for years, then suddenly expect immediate results once they decide they want attention.”
That expectation often creates frustration when visibility and reputation fail to materialise instantly.
“You cannot compress years of credibility-building into one campaign.”
She also points to a lingering misconception that strong products alone are enough to drive recognition.
“There’s still this assumption that if the product is good enough, the right people will simply find you. That’s rarely how it works.”
In investor communications specifically, Drofa says relevance matters just as much as messaging.
“Every investor has their own thesis. You can do everything correctly and still fail if you’re speaking to someone whose attention is focused elsewhere.”
Her advice is straightforward: prioritise clarity over exaggeration.
“Use facts, not superlatives. Explain what problem you solve, for whom, and what the return looks like.”
The human element in financial content
For Drofa, the difference between effective financial communications and generic industry content often comes down to one thing: whether it feels genuinely human.
“People want to read people,” she says. “They want real expertise, grounded in facts, explained in a way that makes sense.”
That applies across formats, whether press releases, commentary, podcasts, video or long-form thought leadership, but content without strategic alignment, she argues, quickly loses impact.
“What separates strong communications from generic output is whether the agency genuinely understands the client’s goals and works as part of their team.”
Without that integration, even technically strong content can feel disconnected.
“It might be well-written, but it floats without purpose.”
The clients who succeed
Asked what her most successful clients have in common, Drofa points less to branding or visibility and more to mindset.
“They’re hard workers, but specifically in the sense that they continuously develop their product internally,” she says. “They’re not focused only on appearances while nothing evolves underneath.”
She also describes successful founders and leadership teams as intellectually engaged.
“They read, they learn, they challenge ideas, and they stay involved in the process.”
That collaboration, she says, produces the strongest long-term outcomes.
“The best client relationships feel like partnerships. It becomes a shared effort rather than a transaction.”
PR is not marketing
One misconception Drofa says continues to persist is the idea that PR is simply a paid visibility mechanism.
“People still think PR is essentially buying placements and backlinks,” she says. “Pay for an article, get coverage, job done.”
That confusion between PR and marketing continues to create unrealistic expectations around outcomes and measurement.
“PR builds credibility and relationships over time. Marketing drives conversion. Both are important, but they’re not interchangeable.”
As a result, the agency now spends considerable time educating prospective clients before projects even begin.
“We explain very clearly what communications can do, what marketing does, and where the overlap ends.”
AI, media change and the future of marcomms
Looking ahead, Drofa believes the communications industry is already entering a period of structural transformation driven by AI, media fragmentation and changing discovery habits.
“Newsrooms are shrinking, AI is becoming part of editorial workflows, and search itself is evolving,” she says. “The relationship between visibility, credibility and content is changing in real time.”
While she is cautious about making decade-long predictions, she believes adaptability will become the defining skill for communications teams.
“The agencies that stay relevant will be the ones capable of continuously adapting to where audiences are, what formats they trust, and how people discover information.”
At the centre of that, however, the fundamentals remain unchanged.
“You still need to understand your audience and give them something worth paying attention to.”
Building something lasting
Among the projects she is most proud of, Drofa points not to a single campaign, but to the progression of the business itself.
“I remember the first book we wrote for a major Danish company eleven years ago,” she says. “At the time, it felt enormous. Now it’s something we deliver routinely.”
The same applies to crisis communications.
“In the early days, crises felt terrifying. The whole team would mobilise under pressure and improvise in real time. Now we still mobilise, but there’s no panic because we know exactly what to do.”
That shift from uncertainty to confidence, she says, represents years of accumulated experience.
Beyond client work, she also highlights the company’s Women Leading the Way initiative, which celebrates women across finance and fintech.
“We created it because we believed it mattered,” she says. “The response showed there was a real need for it.”
For the next five years, Drofa’s ambitions are clear: global recognition, large-scale growth and becoming a leading international financial communications agency.
But underneath the expansion targets, she says the original purpose remains unchanged.
“We started from the belief that financial knowledge should be accessible, and that people shouldn’t need to be insiders to understand markets.”
For Drofa, that principle still acts as the company’s foundation.
“Growth on its own has never been the goal. It only matters if the mission behind it stays intact.”