EPISODE 216: Marketer of the Month Podcast with Sophie Heller

Hey there! Welcome to the Marketer Of The Month blog!

We recently interviewed Sophie Heller for our monthly podcast – ‘Marketer of the Month’! We had some amazing insightful conversations with Sophie and here’s what we discussed about –

1. The natural progression from digital ventures to transforming traditional businesses into digital models.

2. Addressing challenges of maintaining business relevance in retail banking across multiple countries.

3. Success in embedding a customer-first culture and reorganizing teams into customer-focused tribes.

4. Using AI to improve marketing campaigns and tailor acquisition strategies for specific segments.

5. Ensuring customer privacy while offering personalized services through soft consent methods.

6. Mobile apps as central to customer interaction and banking autonomy.

About our host:

Dr. Saksham Sharda is the Chief Information Officer at Outgrow.co. He specializes in data collection, analysis, filtering, and transfer by means of widgets and applets. Interactive, cultural, and trending widgets designed by him have been featured on TrendHunter, Alibaba, ProductHunt, New York Marketing Association, FactoryBerlin, Digimarcon Silicon Valley, and at The European Affiliate Summit.

About our guest:

Sophie Heller is the Chief Operating Officer of Group BNP Paribas CPBS, where she focuses on creating positive business impacts through improved customer experiences and innovative business models. With a background in strategic consulting and building ventures, she has spent 15 years transforming large organizations.

Agility in the Market: BNP Paribas’ COO Sophie Heller on How to Transform a Market Approach

The Intro!

Saksham Sharda: Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Outgrow’s Marketer of the Month. I’m your host, Dr. Saksham Sharda, and I’m the creative director at Outgrow. co. And for this month we are going to interview Sophie Heller who is the Chief Operating Offer of Group BNP Paribas CPBS.

Sophie Heller: Great to be here. Thank you.

Don’t have time to read? No problem, just watch the Podcast!

Challenge yourself with this trivia about the exciting topics Sophie Heller covered in the podcast.

Launch Interactive Quiz

Or you can just listen to it on Spotify!

The Rapid Fire Round!

Saksham Sharda: So let’s start with the rapid-fire round. The first question is, at what age do you want to retire?

Sophie Heller: I don’t know yet. And I don’t think of a rapid entrance to retirement

Saksham Sharda: The second question is how long does it take you to get ready in the mornings?

Sophie Heller: One hour and a half. Because I like to exercise in the morning.

Saksham Sharda: What time of day are you most inspired?

Sophie Heller: Very inspired by the train.

Saksham Sharda: How many hours of sleep can you survive on?

Sophie Heller: I slept eight hours. Not just to survive, but to feel well.

Saksham Sharda: Fill in the blank. An upcoming finance trend is blank.

Sophie Heller: Embedded finance.

Saksham Sharda: The city in which the best kiss of your life happened.

Sophie Heller:  Boston.

Saksham Sharda: How do you relax?

Sophie Heller: Playing the piano and dancing.

Saksham Sharda: How many cups of coffee do you drink per day?

Sophie Heller: Zero.

Saksham Sharda: A habit of yours that you hate?

Sophie Heller: Not that I hate it, but I try to think less.

Saksham Sharda: The most valuable skill you’ve learned in life.

Sophie Heller: Letting go.

Saksham Sharda: Your favorite Netflix show.

Sophie Heller: Benchwarmers.

Saksham Sharda: One-word description of your leadership style.

Sophie Heller: Making people grow

Saksham Sharda: The top priority in your daily schedule.

Sophie Heller: Have clear priorities. 

Saksham Sharda: An Ideal vacation spot for relaxation.

Sophie Heller: Maintain in winter and go to the seaside in summer, where I can surf.

Saksham Sharda: Key work-life maintaining a work-life balance.

Sophie Heller: Discipline.

The Big Questions!

Saksham Sharda:  Alright. Well, that was the end of the rapid fire. Now we can go into the longer questions, which you can answer with as much time and ease as you like. You had a diverse career in planning, strategic consulting, building ventures, and transforming large organizations. What motivated you to transition from building new ventures to focusing on large-scale transformations at BNP?

Sophie Heller: The short answer is when I was ready professionally and personally, and the longer answer is I had two motivation drivers that have been quite stable over time, have an impact, and work with smart and nice people. So my career, I choose my jobs and the function of those two drivers. So I started in consulting where people had smiles and sparkling eyes. I loved doing that and I learned strategic and data-driven thinking. But then I missed the impact.   I earned a nice living, so I was able to save money and go on a work trip. During that work trip, I learned a little bit more about myself and what I wanted to do. And so when coming back, I knew that I wanted to build a venture on my own. Uh and there I learned really from strategy to implementation in a very, very concrete way. But also the management of timing, which is key in a startup because you don’t have a lot of it. After that, I think after 2000, I wanted to learn more about digital because I knew this was going to impact a lot of the way we create products, distribute et cetera. So, I joined a new venture and I learned digital skills. After that, the transition to transformation was quite natural because I built a venture in Italy for a French group, a digital retail consumer finance business that was very successful. And then the group in France asked me to turn their traditional business into a digital world in France. So this is how I started transforming. And then I was called by ING to do also the same kind of transformation, digital transformation on a larger scale. And then I became the CEO of ING Direct. And this is where I learned P and L  management and large-scale organizational and culture transformation. So after that, when BNP called me, I thought that I had these different skills, and I was also personally more ready to have a role where I would not necessarily have all the levers and that would be more political because I felt also more secure, I think, on that side. So this is where I joined.

Saksham Sharda: So what have then been the most significant challenges you’ve faced in driving this digital transformation at BNP, for instance?

Sophie Heller: Yeah. so if you, let me set the scene maybe for the audience so they understand a little bit where I’m talking from. So I work in the retail part of the banks. So this is where all the retail banks are. So it’s 20 million clients and eight countries and 100,000 people. My role is really to make sure that the business model and the proposition, the operating model stay relevant with all the changes in the consumer and market and regulation et cetera. So it’s very wide because it touches on products, distribution, and pricing. So the key thing, and probably the key challenge is to understand what are the key elements you need to work on. What, how they relate to each other, and how you are going to embark people on those topics. So this is what I gradually learned. So how do you set up a common vision with people so they understand exactly where we need the bank to go and then what are the steps? And then make sure that you find people that are willing to go first. It’s always someone who wants to go first and then you, you go with this one, you make a success, and then you share with others. I think this is pretty much what we’ve tried to reproduce in all the initiatives that we had.

Saksham Sharda: How do you do in your current role, you focus on identifying and addressing all these priority needs of both customers and teams. How do you do that daily to achieve your objective?

Sophie Heller: At the starting point of all this initiative is always the customer. So first already identify the customers that we want to serve as a priority. Because when you are a universal base you are, you are addressing all the population, and people are very different. So make sure what kind of clients you want to address, and then have a UX research, but also through quantitative research be very clear about what are the main pain points for the clients you need to solve. This is very important, and what are the things that are needed from the customer that are not met? And that means opportunities for you, new services, and new ways of addressing them. So it always starts with this work. Then we cross all those opportunities with the difficulty or capacity to do complexity. And then we select priorities and then, and then we take, one topic at a time. The first topic that will come to that is to make sure that this culture of thinking client first spreads progressively into the organization.

Saksham Sharda: How do you manage to stay on top of such a broad range of topics? You mentioned UX and strategy. How do you manage to stay on top of all of this?

Sophie Heller: I think that my career prepared me quite well because I had those broad experiences. But of course, things continue to change very fast. So I would say the main answer is that I rely on a great team of talents. I have 100 experts of all those expertise that work together and that they keep learning. I keep learning. For example, AI and sustainability, sustainability have been the two fields where I also had to learn myself. So I went through programs of training at Cambridge, for example, for sustainability. But the last thing also, because you mentioned skills that are more hard about, or technical skills, but I think that in a, in such a role I strongly believe that transformation is a skill in itself I think that to, to do my job, what I had also to learn is how people because at the end, this is always a question about people. No. So what makes people want to change or stick to their habits? So, I found out that the last training I did and, it may sound a little bit strange, but I trained myself as a therapist because I wanted to understand what the functioning, more functioning about how her mental health is, is working and, how you can help people change. And also to have a systemic view of the organization, because I think about the company more as a body and less as a machine. So I think that the body, well, when you start infecting a virus, there’s a reaction. So yeah, having a systemic view of things is crucial because the biggest mistake you can make I think it’s okay, I see a problem, let’s fix this problem, but then you create another problem. So I think this is lately, my thinking is a lot about that. Also, I think that mental health is a major issue in our societies and corporations, especially in those times of very rapid changes in society, but also in, in companies. Leaders need to be more educated about that, to make sure that we are also protecting the mental health of the employees.

Saksham Sharda: So you said you trained yourself as a therapist. How did you go about doing that?

Sophie Heller: I decided to go for digital therapy. I don’t know if you know that. So I did the training. Actually, it started four years ago. And I’m going to be certified next October. So it’s been weekends, and vacations dedicated to that. And yeah, I think that’s been a great help in doing this job.

Saksham Sharda: Oh, so you are a constant learner.

Sophie Heller:  Yeah. I should have added to the motivation drivers for learning 

Saksham Sharda: So whether you look at a company as a system or a body, as you were trying to say, your role, in general, involves ensuring that BNP Powerbus remains a successful business model in a new world. What do you see as the biggest challenges or trends shaping this new world?

Sophie Heller:  There are a lot of trends, and I suppose many people listening are not bankers, but as a retail business, we observe the same trends as retail in general. So of course, the increasing role of mobile commerce, social media, the role of influencers, the need for e-personalization and instant entity, but also the growing threat of security or the need for security. And it’s, especially in the banking sector, this is key. These trends are reshaping the way we think. The distribution, when you think that today the majority of people are using the bank digitally through mobile, and even when they meet an advisor more than 60% of the meetings are remote. So how do you reshape your distribution model? Rethinking the role of branches of humans upskilling them with more expertise because humans are still needed and clients clearly express preferences in some moments that they want to talk with the human. So you have the two paths, how you reinforce humans in what they have. So listen to express emotion,  et cetera. And at the same time, how you accelerate the digital transformation of your processes, you improve your mobile apps, and how you create the link between the two. I think this is the most complex thing because of course you have all the urbanization of data IT architecture underneath because this is, this is huge work, but I think that having a clear vision and shared vision between business and IT architects and CTOs and et cetera, really helps moving in that direction.

Saksham Sharda: So you’ve mentioned the joy of seeing all these transformations and all of these things change over time. Could you give our audience a story about a transformation you led at BNP that you are particularly proud of?

Sophie Heller: I will say that for me, the most profound and difficult aspect of change in a big organization like this is the culture and the ways of working. And, of course, I already touched upon that, but putting the customer at the center and working in an agile way are the two things that I’ve started. Even though this is not the end because this is a constant journey, I’m very proud to see the changes. So if I look at whenever, and I was in a branch two weeks ago discussing with the manager of the branch, she was very proud to show me that her  NPS score is improving. This is something that people even didn’t look at. So now you see that the voice of the client has deeply penetrated the organization. So people that are in the branches, manager of the branch, or if I meet a product owner in one of the countries, he will tell me what the customer effort score on this process is, or what are the main pain points for the client that he’s trying to solve. So I’m very happy about that. Of course, we can make more progress and we need to progress more. But this is one of the things I’m proud of, and maybe a second one we progressively changed the organization of our company. We’re working so in, because we are, we have companies that have like between 10 and 20,000 people. So they are big companies. And at the center, you have also thousands of people that were working very much in silos. So what we’ve done is that we regrouped those people in tribes of 100, 150 people at max, and they are centered around, let’s say, activity for the customer, which is coherent. For example, everything related to home. So home loans, home insurance, et cetera, within the same tribe and uniting marketing people and its people. And I think that this has been very instrumental also in bringing this client orientation because people will have a common view about what the client’s experience and expectations are. They have common priorities and they can work together to make that happen. So this, I’m very proud of as well, even there, we have a lot of work still to do to have the DevOps and, and continuous delivery and et cetera. But I think this, we’ve, we’ve made a huge progress.

Saksham Sharda: It seems what you guys are developing is a more personalized approach towards more personalized products and services here. Mm-Hmm. So how do you plan to leverage data analytics to tailor marketing strategies and deliver personalized customer experiences here?

Sophie Heller: Yeah, I think this is very important.  We have already started because for a couple of years already, we have been using AI and machine learning to, for example, improve our marketing campaigns. So we are not using the product scoring anymore but we are starting with the person. For example, given everything that I know, what is the next best conversation that an advisor who is talking to you should have with you? And what we can measure is that those campaigns are the ones that are bringing the best ROI. So we are in the process of generalizing this. So this is very concrete, it’s already done, but it’s to be pursued. And another thing is maybe the acquisition of new clients we were talking about before the fact that all clients are very diverse. And if I look for example, the professional clients, SMBs,  we have an extreme variety of clients of different activities with different needs, and different values. So for the bank, we have a very value-oriented approach. So with data analytics, you can measure the lifetime value of clients, of course. And, when you have selected those specific segments, then you can tailor acquisition strategies that are completely tailored to their needs. For example, if you are a doctor, it’ll not be the same ecosystem as if you are a startup. So, for example, looking at startups of a specific kind, we can partner with people that are working on the creation of the company and have common solutions designed for them. So it starts with choosing the right segment based on analysis and then doing UX research and, and, and tailor new propositions.

Saksham Sharda: And, how does the company ensure that personalized marketing efforts like these maintain customer privacy and trust at the same time?

Sophie Heller: Yeah, your point is key. As we are handling a lot of personal data, of course, we are submitted to the law of course, as are all European companies with the GDPR. But I think that we also have other regulations because we are in the banking sector, so you also have banking secrecy. So everything that we do we have of course great care about using and finding the balance between the use of personal data and the value it brings also to the customer. So whenever it’s something that is really in, in, in interest of the customer, for example, I can analyze his data to indicate potential savings. For example, we just say we have observed that you could save some money if we propose some insights for you, would you be interested in that? So we check the interest first of the customer, even though we are not legally obliged to ask for consent, but we prefer having this like soft consent. So the person says, yes, I’m interested, and then we say, okay, we can activate this service for you that will analyze all your energy bills and we’ll propose to switch suppliers. And we do that automatically for you. So I think this is finding that balance with the customer and testing the interest of the customer.

Saksham Sharda: Alright. So let’s move on to lighter topics now. You, what does your typical day at work look like? You wake up in the morning, and then what?

Sophie Heller: I have no typical work. Every day is different. Yesterday, I had a two-hour meeting with my online teams because we are hiring a lot of new people. And because we have different streams of expertise that I mentioned, it’s so important to have connections between the streams. And now with the home office, it’s becoming more complicated because you are not present on the same day et cetera. So we have recently, since Covid, we’ve made a lot of effort to create moments where people can connect and, and find some spontaneity and connect themselves personally. So for yesterday, for example, I was a busy part of the day with my team, creating connections, meeting new people but yeah, and in the morning I was with the exco. So it’s every day is different, but it’s a lot about meeting people, connecting, giving the vision, re-explaining what, why we are doing what we are doing, how we are progressing. So this is a lot of that.

Saksham Sharda: And how much of your time would you say is taken up by meetings?

Sophie Heller: Too much. But we are trying, I think at least with our teams, we also spent a lot of time thinking about our way of working now. And because I think that what struck me is that when we look at the big tech we are always very impressed. And it’s obvious that they are very good at tech. So this is quite, but if you look at the amount of time that they are optimizing the way they work, this is, I think, even more impressive. I think. And in a large organization, like our organization, I think we have some potential ways to look at the legacy of our operating systems also. And I mean, how we, we work? So we try to have as many active meetings as possible. So we try to start all the meetings in my teams, starting with a very short energizer, five minutes to make sure that we are all aligned and all present. So no phone or computer, blah, blah, blah, everybody’s con it is concentrated and we finish all the meetings with the feedback of okay, what have we done well what should we do better next time? Blah, blah, blah. So, and have as much participation as possible and be very clear also about the, the, the, why are we meeting? Is it for validation? Is it information? Is it so, but this is constant work.

Saksham Sharda: You also mentioned that you are hiring more people. What are the qualities you’re looking for in candidates? Just for our audiences interested in getting into the finance sector? Yeah, what qualities are you most interested in?

Sophie Heller: We are looking really at two things. We are looking at the type of expertise, especially in my team, because we are the transformation team for the other entities, we need to have all that expertise such as digital data, a higher expertise than the one that is in the country because we are there to help them progress. So a very high level of expertise, but we are also looking at a lot of soft skills. So we need people that are both very result-oriented, that they have particular experience. So they, they, they want the results, but at the same time, they need to be patient. They need to love to transmit, to coach people to explain, because their job is to do with people so that then the other people are learning how to do them with autonomy. So it’s a mix of very driven people, but at the same time very cooperative and, and, and with a growth mindset. I mean, the growth mindset is the thing that we favor.

Saksham Sharda: Speaking of a growth mindset being a constant learner and loving to face challenges, you are also a board member of Arval Life, nickel, FLOA. So you gained different perspectives on various challenges. How do these experiences influence your work at your job?

Sophie Heller: I think that the strength of the group is also that it serves very different segments of clients and also with different business models and offerings. So you mentioned some activities that are related to Carly, for example. But we also have fintechs, we have big corporations. And I think that this helps in two ways. I think this first helps to go faster. For example, when one entity has already developed an intelligent document-processing asset we can replicate and use the same asset in another country without having to redevelop it. When we go for a profound transformation, such as the one I mentioned before about agile having different entities helps very much, because the first one, which is, the brave one, we go and, and maybe have mistakes, more difficulty, but then for the, the, the late followers, it’ll be much easier than to, to learn and also to jump into the, the water because they have seen the results. And finally, I think the fact of having all those different companies also allows for some innovation. So for example, fact of putting together the retail bank the people that are in specialize in the financing of cars and the people that are leasing cars and insurers we were able to create, a platform where we can provide the final consumer with the, an engine tool that can advise you on the best car you should use based on your behaviors, where you live, the, and offer different financing solutions with insurance and et cetera. So it’s also by putting different teams together, also allows us to answer in a better way to the consumer needs.

Saksham Sharda: So as you transition the business models of retail banking business in particular what innovative marketing channels do you see as the most effective in reaching and engaging modern customers?

Sophie Heller: I think that for us, banking is a little bit specific, but also we are very lucky to have a mobile app, which is always among the 10 most used apps of our customers because on average, people will go 25 to 40 times a month. So this is incredible as a company. So mobile is the way where most changes are happening. So gradually it’s been used more and more, of course for letting the customer be able to do things by himself, so have more autonomy. But the vision that we have, is becoming the center of interaction because as I said before, the customer is contacting the bank more and more remotely. So we see, and we’ve also made an analysis on that, that the channels, you know, with directions are also changing. So people are sending fewer emails and more instant messaging. So if you link that, those changes to the security issue and because fraud with emails or unsecured channels is increasing for, for us, the mobile is becoming like a hub of interaction where you can, and the secure instant messaging will become the, the, the main channel to interact with a customer where you can have a synchronous or synchronous conversation. You can share documents, you can do co-browsing, and you can sign electronically. So I think this is going to be a big evolution in the way that we interact and sell the products. This is one thing. The second thing is that part of the new services that we have created on the mobile is also providing more personalized data to the customer. If I take an example when you, when you have your transaction payment transaction data, now we can predict things. So you can say, well, based on the last month, your capacity to save and to put money away has increased from this amount to this amount. So what would you like to do with this amount? Would you like to open a savings account and you can do it directly here, or would you like to discuss the matter with an advisor? So we see that more and more what we call marketing in reality is going to be a mix of personalized advice given on the mobile, based on the personal data of the person. And then a proposition of call that is going to be action, call to action that is going to be either on the mobile or to another channel. But we see the mobile has been the hub for interactions.

Saksham Sharda: So with this increasing use of mobile to handle, handle common banking transactions and everything, do you think there’s less of a pressure on banks to open new branches, physical branches? Or is that still that expansion happening?

Sophie Heller: Yeah, this, there’s a, the paradox is that maybe some people thought that the digital was going to replace branches. But what you see, especially when you look at the interactions with the clients with the bank and what they declare, but also what they do, you see that even young people are the ones that are the most interactions. So they have more digital interactions, but they also have more human interaction. Because I think that the more you develop the two in parallel. So it’s, it’s not one replacing the other. It’s on the contrary. It’s more interactions. And when you think about AI and the possibility of a virtual assistant that will come now with the gen AI is going to increase even more, the number of interactions that people will have, with the banks. So I think that for the bank such as other retail sectors, I think it is really about developing more and more interaction on the digital that is personalized, that is meaningful with personal insight, but at the same moment, having the possibility to unplug for the digital every time that it’s relevant for the customer. So there’s a little bit of complexity. This is a specific situation but human doesn’t necessarily mean branches. So this is still something that we’ll see in the coming years, what is happening. There have been countries that have been very strong on decreasing branches, mostly in the north of Europe traditionally in branches even though they curb branches as well. But what you see is that it’s, it’s even there, it’s also depending on the client behavior and also data is very able, very useful to measure also what you are losing when you close a branch. So the latest work showed that it’s not necessarily profitable to close a branch because you, you pay you, you lose part of the relationship, you lose the new clients that still come a lot in the branches. So I think this is something that will continue to evolve gradually in the coming years. But definitely what we do in the branches is changing. So basically the servicing, the common things, everything is going to be more and more handled by the digital. So people will come to the branches, but more for appointments, and value added. But I also take care of specific populations. So like the elderly population, very old people, or some people that don’t speak French et cetera, they still need to have some accompaniment for their daily banking. And of course, the branch is also very useful for that. They provide this social role.

Saksham Sharda: So joining the executive committee of BNP Parapa, commercial Personal Banking, and Services, CPPS you’ll be reporting to key figures of the organization. How do you plan to align your marketing initiatives that we just talked about with the broader strategic goals of the CPBS division?

Sophie Heller: Well, I think that for my role, I could not do it without being at the exco because it gives you the legitimacy within the organization to push some important and structuring topics. But also because sitting with my peers who are the CEO of the different businesses it’s a way to align all the initiatives with them and to make them private or prioritized or postponed. So I  know exactly what is going on in the business. And, third, on some of the most structural initiatives that I mentioned, like the changes of distribution and et cetera. I need the buy-in of the CEO and the sponsorship of the CEO on them. So I would say that by design, the alignment is there because it starts with defining and proposing, but defining common themes at the EXCO level, and then CADing them, to the organization. So it’s we, we prepare with the team, we, we cascade to the EXCO to make sure that it’s aligned and approved, and then it goes back to be implemented. So it’s crucial.

Saksham Sharda: And what advice would you give to someone aspiring to have a career similar to yours where you’ve reached,

Sophie Heller: But first of all, I would’ve never planned to have this career, because if someone had said, you’ll end up in a top management role in a very big organization, I would say no way because I hated it as a young person. So definitely for me, what worked most was to follow up on what drove me in terms of energy. Because I think that when you are passionate about what you do, you invest the best of yourself, and then you can do it in a very good way, and that leads you to more excellence and blah, blah, blah. And I think that the advice I would give is that I think that you should become an expert in yourself. I think to be very aware of what is driving you, what you don’t like, and don’t try to do things you think people expect from you, but do things that you want to do for yourself, and it’ll lead you where it’ll lead you. But I need, for me, a career. Never something that I’d say, I want to do this because I want to do the career, but that worked for me. I think everyone is different.

Saksham Sharda: Yeah, that sounds like very therapeutic advice. Again, it seems like, you’re into it.

Sophie Heller: Absolutely.

Saksham Sharda: Alright, so the last question, which we ask every speaker, but in your case, it’s quite relevant since what you said right now, the last question is what would you be doing in your life, if not this?

Sophie Heller: I keep asking myself all the time. Well, there are already things that I’m doing that are important for me outside of my job. So I mentioned therapists or training, but now I start to accompany a few people outside of work very often because I don’t have a lot of time, but I practice music a lot. So if I was not doing this, I would be playing jazz, in a trio. And I love doing this, so I would probably do much more music if I was not working. This is something that is also creative and collective.

Let’s Conclude!

Saksham Sharda: Thanks, everyone for joining us for this month’s episode of Outgrow’s Marketer of the Month. That was Sophie Heller who is the Chief Operating Offer of Group BNP Paribas CPBS.

Sophie Heller: Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Saksham Sharda: Check out the website for more details and we’ll see you once again next month with another marketer of the month.