His expertise includes a broad range of skills such as B2B marketing, proactive leadership, account management and business transformation, all underpinned by a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Prior to his current role, Deon led marketing operations at Legal and General Asset Management, streamlining processes and integrating advanced marketing tools to enhance content delivery and compliance.

His journey also includes significant contributions in regulatory and client reporting management.

Join us as we dive into a conversation to explore the intersection of marketing and technology in one of the UK's leading financial services organisations. Deon, thank you for joining us today.

Great to be here and thank you for having me.

Just to kick us off, could you start by telling us about your career background? What led you to your current role at Legal and General Asset Management?

It's a very interesting journey. So I started off on a working holiday here in the UK, and my first job was working in hospitality in a hotel.

Right.

And then I moved into banking. So I worked for Barclays Bank in the private wealth space. Then I got a phone call to come for an interview at Legal & General, and I thought, why would I want to go into insurance? I didn't understand.

Yeah.

There was a whole asset management business behind Legal & General. So I've been there thirteen years in various roles. I started off in the client service space initially, managing the client support teams. Then I moved into fund reporting and regulatory change. And then I had the opportunity to move into marketing four years ago to really come in and build the martech stack and ensure better governance in marketing.

Okay, interesting. You've talked about the strong alignment between marketing and sales, particularly at Legal & General. Has that relationship evolved over the time that you've been there, and how does that alignment enhance business performance?

It's an interesting one. We've seen the evolution of how marketing has actually changed. Marketing is no longer just a colouring-in department. Marketing is a core part of sales enablement.

And we see this great relationship between marketing creating the right content that resonates with our sellers, which then resonates with the people we're selling to — our clients. What's really important is that we take a very integrated approach when looking at the content we're creating, the campaigns we're building, and how we go to market with one clear L&G voice.

That's really important for us — really serving our marketing people to do their best jobs and enabling them to support the sales teams as well.

Okay. Now to get this working symbiotically, you've got technology at the heart of that. I know you call it an innovative use of technology, and you've been developing close partnerships with some of the suppliers that help you with that, including the use of AI. Could you give a bit of background on that?

Yeah, technology is playing such an important role right now, especially in marketing. What's really key for us is that it's not just suppliers — it's about building relationships. That's such an important thing.

I'm lucky to work with some amazing vendors right now who are really leading the way in how we innovate in the marketing space. One key player has been Seismic.

The biggest challenge that most companies currently face is content. There's a massive pool of content living in different ecosystems. What we've managed to do is bring all that together using Seismic, which allows us to curate content by client type and by country while ensuring good governance.

What that means for our sellers is they don't have to worry about getting things re-complied. We have everything complied within Seismic, which enables them to build pitch decks or any client-facing material very quickly. So it's faster to market as well.

We're really leading in that space of content curation, content production and content delivery.

So is Seismic essentially a content distribution platform?

No. What Seismic sees itself as is a sales enablement tool.

Companies often buy Seismic and use it for one specific reason — normally content curation — but there are so many different facets to it.

Me being very tight with money and making sure we're commercial in the way we market, what I try to do is maximise the use of our technology — sweating the asset.

We've built both the content library and different journeys within the Seismic platform. When a salesperson sends something out via Seismic, we get live insights. We can see exactly how the content is being utilised by our salespeople but also by our clients.

We can see what's resonating with our clients, which enables us to build the right content going forward.

We also have digital sales rooms where we can create a customised space for our clients to come in and interact with our content and our salespeople.

The next great piece we're doing at the moment is looking at enablement planning — bringing in a tool where the marketing team can brief, build and deliver assets in one ecosystem.

We know people don't want to work in multiple systems. Nobody wants to go through email, then design tools, then back into another system to log something. It's too time-consuming.

So we're trying to reduce the admin burden and free up time for creatives to actually be creative while helping sales do their jobs well.

You mentioned the next part you're building. It sounds like the partnership with Seismic is so tight that you're helping them with the development of the product. Have I got that right?

Absolutely. Like I said earlier, it's about partnership and trust.

We've built a very strong relationship with Seismic over the last four years, which gives us access to the development team. We can see the product roadmap and also influence how it evolves.

That enables us to benefit from Seismic's technology while also getting exactly what we need for our team.

We started working closely with them about a year ago on a product they were developing. From an end-user perspective, we identified a number of gaps.

The great thing about Seismic is that they're very open to feedback. They were keen to partner with me and my team to help shape the future state of the tool.

We're really looking forward to that going live in October for our planning for 2025.

Fabulous. That sounds like a brilliant partnership benefiting both sides.

Fast-tracking Seismic, ensuring they're building something that the end client really wants, and as you say, selfishly helping your team achieve more with the same resources.

Yes, it's a win-win. We're not just building something in isolation for our own team. I'm thinking about use cases that will be commercially viable for Seismic as well.

But equally, if we can get the right cost for support and development, it makes my team's lives much easier and gives Seismic a better product.

But equally, if we can get the right cost for support and development, it makes my team's lives much easier and gives Seismic a better product.

Let's talk a bit about AI. It's the buzzword everywhere at the moment. How are you approaching AI within your marketing technology stack?

AI is a really interesting one because everyone is talking about it, but the key thing for us is making sure that we're using it responsibly.

Being in a regulated industry, governance is incredibly important. We can't just switch on AI tools without thinking about the implications, the data we're using and how outputs are generated.

So our approach has been very measured. We're looking at where AI can genuinely improve productivity without introducing risk.

One of the areas we're exploring is content generation and summarisation. Marketing teams spend a lot of time drafting, editing and repurposing content. AI can really help accelerate that process.

But we always have a human in the loop. Nothing goes out without human review, especially in financial services where accuracy and compliance are absolutely critical.

We're also looking at how AI can help analyse content engagement data, helping us understand more quickly what is resonating with clients.

That allows us to be much more data-driven in how we approach campaigns and content strategy.

That makes a lot of sense. Governance seems to be a big theme in what you do. How do you balance innovation with the need for strong governance frameworks?

It's always a balancing act.

On the one hand, you want to innovate and move quickly. On the other hand, you need to make sure that everything you do stands up from a regulatory and compliance perspective.

What we've done is embed governance into our processes rather than treating it as something separate.

For example, when we design workflows within our technology platforms, compliance checkpoints are built in. That means content can't move to the next stage without the appropriate approvals.

It actually speeds things up in the long run because everyone understands the process and knows what is required.

It also gives senior stakeholders confidence that marketing activity is being managed in a controlled and transparent way.

You mentioned earlier about enabling creatives to focus on being creative. How important is that cultural element when you're implementing new technology?

It's hugely important.

Technology on its own doesn't transform anything. It's the people and the processes around it that make the difference.

When we introduce new tools, we spend a lot of time on training and change management. We want people to understand why we're doing something, not just how to use the system.

If people see that technology removes admin and gives them more time to focus on strategic or creative work, adoption becomes much easier.

It's about empowering teams rather than overwhelming them with new platforms.

Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities for marketing technology over the next few years?

I think the biggest opportunity is integration and simplification.

Many organisations have accumulated lots of different marketing tools over time. The challenge now is making those tools work together in a seamless way.

The more connected your ecosystem is, the more insight you can generate and the more efficiently your teams can operate.

AI will certainly play a role in that, but I think the real value will come from how well organisations integrate their systems and manage their data.

The other big opportunity is personalisation. Clients increasingly expect content that is relevant to them and their specific needs.

With the right data and technology, we can deliver much more tailored experiences.

Before we wrap up, what advice would you give to organisations that are starting to rethink their marketing technology strategy?

The first thing I would say is don't start with the technology.

Start with the problem you're trying to solve. What are the pain points for your teams? What are the inefficiencies in your current processes?

Once you understand that, then you can look at what technology will genuinely help.

The second thing is to focus on adoption. There's no point investing in great platforms if people don't use them properly.

And finally, build strong partnerships with your vendors. The best results come when suppliers really understand your business and work with you to develop solutions.

Deon, thank you very much for sharing those insights. It's been a fascinating conversation.

Thank you very much for having me. I've really enjoyed it.

And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to the Growth Engine podcast. We'll see you again next time.