Since the start of the year, BCB Group has been building an increasingly global brand presence through tactical activations, awards, content and highly targeted events.
The company arrives at this year’s Token 2049 conference in Singapore in high spirits, having secured its European E-Money Institution and Digital Assets Service Provider status (in France) at the end of April.
Throughout the year, the business has been keen to tell the next chapter of its story, showcasing new products and solutions at Paris Blockchain Week, at Money 20/20 in Amsterdam and at Consensus 2024 in the US earlier in the year.
Now, as the crypto world descends on Asia, BCB is arriving with brand presence, market momentum, a larger commercial team and exciting plans for product development, partnerships and news of a string of corporate wins.
The group has also onboarded a new playmaker to drive forward the group’s aggressive expansion plans in the coming months. Taking the role of chief revenue officer, Tim Renew is a hire that reflects BCB’s intent.
Renew’s surname could be a case of nominative determinism. He has a track record of refreshing the commercial appeal of businesses, previously developed fintechs to a position where they’ve successfully enticed investment from Bank of America, Citibank, National Australia Bank and others.
Target driven, he is all about discipline and high stakes achievement. And, in BCB Group, he’s found a business that mirrors his own ambitions.
“My background is building companies from nothing,” he says. “I’ve always loved the crypto industry and wanted to get into it. I’d seen that BCB Group was already extremely successful and had attracted interest from some of the biggest names in the industry. It’s exciting, now, as the markets are changing and more competition builds, to be responsible for building structure and scaling that. BCB has a great customer base, supported by talented staff.”
The company’s new CRO has the profile of a restless high achiever. As a youngster, he wanted to join the military and, more recently, joined the Army Reserves to later be selected for officer training. A keen sportsman, Renew has competed in ultra marathons, Ironman triathlons and he is also an accomplished climber.
At the same time, however, he also likes to embrace nature and balances his family commitments with his two daughters with time alone.
“I like discipline,” he says, noting that it is not uncommon for him to jump out of bed at 5am and go for
a run. But he readily admits that this is equally applicable to his approach to work.
“I expect people to work hard but also to have fun while they’re doing it,” he jokes. For those who have worked at California-based fintechs (as Renew has), this work hard, play hard culture is engrained into the workplace mentality.
Balanced mentality
Renew’s workplace philosophy is not the only thing he is bringing to BCB. He brings substantial experience and a persistent approach to commercial vitality.
“The first time I went to the US to pitch my last company, we had a meeting with a major US bank and we were told ‘it’s never going to be a thing’. 12 months later, we were told ‘it’s definitely a thing but it’s not coming to the US’. Six months after that, they signed the contract.”
He explains that these stages on the buyer’s journey are not uncommon for buyers of emerging technology as many potential clients can be slow to recognise the business need.
“They weren’t lying,” he says. “They just weren’t ready. The same is the case now with much of what BCB offers.
It is a matter of time and it is about making sure that we are in the right place. What BCB does is a game changer.”
Communicating that innovation through a marketing lens will be key to the commercial team’s success as it goes into this next period of growth. During his career, Renew has been at this stage before.
At Cloud.IQ, he worked as chief revenue officer between 2013 and 2018 in London before moving to San Jose in California for another two years. There, he oversaw business growth that led to the company scaling to 150 people before securing an investment from PayPal.
In 2020, he moved to take up a CRO position with Banked, a business that would later become a market leader with investment from the aforementioned banks including Citi and Bank of America.
“The CRO role was once one of those “made up” roles from Silicon Valley, but it is becoming more established,”
he says. “It is about looking holistically at a business, across product, customer experience and marketing.
It is looking at what needs to happen to help achieve the customer objective.
In the role at BCB, I look after sales, account management, customer success support, and marketing.”
Listening and understanding
When asked how he intends to use his experience to affect change at the business, he is keen to underscore that success comes only from gathering information when beginning any new role.
“The first thing I do is shut up and I listen,” he says. “To identify any opportunities or inefficiencies, you need to watch first. Only once you’ve done that, you can act. It’s important to look for areas where you can make fast wins and streamline some of the processes.
“There are several levers you can pull to optimise growth. It is all about taking the vision of the CEO from the boardroom and making it happen,” he adds.
The prospect of Token 2049 holds real appeal to Renew who describes the community at the event as “valuable” noting that having decision makers in one room across multiple sectors is the perfect platform to begin new commercial relationships.
“It is invaluable to have that level of knowledge in one place, at one time,” he says. “Realistically, business gets done when people talk to people.
“I’ve done a huge amount of shows in my time. I try to do something in each geographical region because if you
do the same events, in the same region, you only get the same people. If you want to meet bankers, there is no better place than Sibos. If you want to meet fintechs, you go to Money 20/20. For crypto, it’s Token.”
Renew explains that events like this are key to BCB understanding its target markets more deeply by establishing stronger relationships.
“If we are going to get the growth… you have to understand who to sell to, why we sell to them and what the ROI is versus someone else. BCB is in a great position. It doesn’t have to do anything different, we just need to
do it better.
“The cherry on top, of course, is going into the crypto adjacent industries such as fintech, gaming and marketplaces.”
The group’s new CRO is hoping to make the most BCB’s in-house analytical capabilities too, to measure whether new commercial approaches are succeeding.
“We need to get the analysis, the data, and run specific campaigns around when products are being released and when events are happening,” he says. “Only then can we understand how we are going to pursue a segment.
“I believe you should have a continuous feedback loop. Compliance is a big one for the industry we are in. So we need to be certain that we can onboard clients and know how quickly we can do that.
“Having done so, we need to be able to capture all those different touch points and then analyse the data.
There is a division of BCB called revenue operations. It has an extraordinary ability to soak up this information
and come out with new suggestions. That’s really useful.”
Meet Tim Renew and his colleagues from BCB Group at Token 2049, which takes place between 18 – 19 September 2024 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.