With a rich career spanning over twenty years, Brian has built an impressive track record in the insight and research field, specialising in the effective use of market research tools and technologies and implementing strategies that place the customer at the heart of business decisions.

At AXA, Brian's role encompasses a broad scope, including the transformation of customer data to enhance web experiences and analytics. Join us as Brian shares his perspective on the role of data analytics in shaping customer engagement strategies.

Brian, thanks for joining us today. To get us going, could you give us a bit of background on how you got into financial services and how you started your career?

Let’s start with how I started my career, and then I’ll move into how I got into financial services. I began in information, working at the European Commission in Environmental Affairs straight after university. That’s where I developed a fascination with finding information and insight for clients.

I then moved to the UK in 2000 and worked for a tech company called Nortel Networks, where I was doing research, trying to understand customer behaviours, new product development and customer satisfaction. That was in the early 2000s, and then the bubble burst, and I moved to T-Mobile.

That was a really key point for me because I was working in research and competitive intelligence, and there was this whole other team of data analysts. I saw a great opportunity to merge both to give a 360-degree view of the customer. I became fascinated by how we could tap into subconscious customer needs — things they don’t yet know they want — and apply that insight to marketing campaigns.

After T-Mobile, I worked at Dell in a similar capacity and then moved to British Gas. Again, it was all about leveraging customer behavioural datasets, which I feel are often untapped in many organisations.

I’ve mainly worked in B2B rather than B2C. B2B insight is more challenging because the sales cycle is longer and buying behaviours differ from consumers. We focused on segmentation, leveraging NPS, and feeding insight back into the business. We also introduced modelling, lead scoring and next-best-action into the sales teams. That was challenging. We ran experiments where we’d give sales teams modelled data, and they’d say it didn’t work. Then we’d present them with a blind model they thought was excellent. It was a fascinating time.

Following British Gas, the opportunity came up to join AXA Investment Managers and create an Insight function from scratch. For anyone working in Insight, that’s nirvana — building a team from the ground up. I was the first employee in the team, and we grew it to include research, data insight and transformation.

At the same time, we needed cultural change. The focus had traditionally been on inflows, outflows and net new money, rather than understanding how customers interact and engage with the brand.

I joined seven years ago, and it’s been a real learning journey. Financial services is very different from other industries I’ve worked in. We remodelled our websites and fund centres, bringing customer experience to the forefront within marketing. We still have a long way to go. Data maturity in asset management around customer behaviour is probably less advanced than in many other industries, but everyone is moving in the right direction.

You mentioned data maturity. Can you explain what you mean by that, and whether there are phases organisations go through to reach it?

I’m specifically referring to customer behavioural data and how customers engage with the brand across touchpoints.

When I arrived, there hadn’t been strong emphasis on collecting that type of data because the benefit wasn’t always clear. One of my first tasks was consolidating five different email systems into one global marketing automation tool. Previously, you couldn’t track performance properly. Now, everything is tracked, and we can assess campaign effectiveness and start building marketing ROI models.

Next was CRM — the golden source of customer information. I built a strategy around interconnecting data points to create a 360-degree customer view. Cultural change was required. Some salespeople kept their own contacts and didn’t always log interactions. Education was essential. If we could demonstrate value, they would buy in.

Over seven years, we’ve moved to conversations about engagement and customer experience — topics that weren’t common before.

So initially, it was about consolidating systems, creating one source of truth and driving behavioural change so that sales teams logged interactions into CRM.

Exactly. Your foundation must be robust data. Without it, you can’t measure ROI, lead generation or marketing effectiveness. There was an education process — explaining why historical data matters and why tracking communications is essential.

If we send irrelevant emails, customers won’t open them. That damages brand perception. It’s about the right message, right time, right channel. Seven years ago, those concepts were relatively new in asset management. It was largely relationship-based. Post-pandemic, everything shifted to digital.

What impact has this had on AXA’s overall strategy?

From a marketing perspective, it centres on lead generation and ROI. Income is the outcome. To get there, you need strong campaign performance, digital performance and customer journey tracking.

We’ve been on a major CX journey. We completely remodelled our digital experience. We removed website attestation at entry — those “Are you a professional investor?” barriers — which were causing traffic drop-off. We took a calculated risk and made content accessible to all audiences, with compliance controls triggered only where necessary.

Traffic increased by around 120%. We won an award in 2022 from Investment Week. The redesign also refreshed our brand and modernised our CMS.

The second phase was transforming our fund centres — the destination for detailed product information. We digitised key documents, improved user experience and increased time on page and downloads significantly. Sales feedback has been extremely positive.

Who was involved in that transformation?

It was a two-year project involving compliance (global and local), sales, brand, design agencies and technology teams. Compliance was critical, especially as we were challenging established norms. It required rewriting significant volumes of content and ensuring adherence to local regulations.

It required senior-level buy-in and steering committees at the highest level. There was investment involved, and we had to demonstrate value.

Let’s talk about your broader digital ecosystem. What are the core building blocks?

The strategy is built around CRM, marketing enablement, sales enablement and data-driven sales.

CRM is the golden source. Marketing automation and web analytics were foundational. We integrated video platforms, webinar platforms, and other engagement tools. All new tools must integrate into our ecosystem.

We created our own Customer Data Platform (CDP). Data from CRM, financial systems, marketing automation, webinar platforms and more flows into the CDP. Our analytics team uses it for modelling, lead scoring and insights.

How does the analytics team mine insight and feed it back to sales?

They support tech teams with data architecture and ensure correct information flows. They present data through visualisation tools like Power BI and Tableau for easy interpretation.

We’re implementing lead scoring in the UK as a pilot. The team works closely with UK sales, meeting weekly to share insights. We may only generate one or two high-quality leads per month, but even behavioural shifts among existing contacts create valuable conversations.

We’re also exploring demand generation at the top of the funnel and account-based marketing approaches.

Is it a two-way dialogue with sales?

Absolutely. As sales see value, they ask for more insight. It’s resource-intensive, but momentum builds. Once a lead converts to revenue, it accelerates adoption.

You spoke about content. How has that evolved?

Content must be relevant. Volume is less important than quality. Content remains king but needs to be purposeful.

We analyse engagement closely. For example, we identified a specific five-minute window for sending certain emails. In one case, Saturday morning performed best, which defied conventional logic.

We move away from “spray and pray” and towards data-driven relevance.

How do you manage content lifecycle?

Some content spikes and drops quickly. Evergreen content sustains lower-level engagement over time. We stagger releases to encourage repeat visits. We regularly review content with our SEO agency and remove underperforming pieces.

If someone is starting this journey, where should they begin?

Start with a clear strategy aligned to business objectives. Get the basics right first — marketing automation, CRM integration, foundational data. Don’t get distracted by flashy tools.

Proofs of concept are valuable. Test locally, evaluate impact, then scale globally if appropriate. Collaboration with technology, data privacy and compliance teams is essential.

Where is asset management compared to other industries?

We’re still behind sectors like retail and B2C giants, but we’re catching up. Post-pandemic acceleration has been significant.

Foundations matter. For example, investing in AI without robust underlying data is pointless. Clean, structured training data is critical.

If organisations seek inspiration, they can look at banks in the B2B space or strong B2B players like British Gas Business. But fundamentally, we are all consumers. Our expectations are shaped by our personal digital experiences, and B2B organisations must meet those standards.

Brian, thank you so much. That was a fascinating discussion.

Thank you. It’s been great.

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