NYC Fall Summit: Building for The Next Economy
At Financial Narrative's Fall Summit in New York, hosted by Nuveen and TIAA, senior marketing and communications leaders from across financial services gathered around one theme: what is next for technology, culture and money. Fireside chats with the CMOs of Nuveen and Mastercard, panels on next-generation investors and brand safety, a midterms briefing and three breakouts covered brand building, revenue measurement and managing reputation in channels firms do not control.
Here's the recap!
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Building a brand for the future
Nuveen CMO Tara Giuliano opened with data on Gen Z: 41% see online gambling as a legitimate way to build wealth, and two-thirds have placed a trade on advice from TikTok or a finfluencer. Short-term thinking, she said, is the biggest competitor for long-term asset managers. Nuveen's research found that younger heirs will work with a professional advisor if the relationship starts early, and want to invest alongside that advisor rather than hand over control.
Giuliano described the 2025 rebrand, built on data showing a top 10 brand ranking drives a disproportionate share of sales and assets. The "Invest like the future's watching" campaign features executives in unscripted conversations with 8- to 12-year-olds. After the Schroders deal closed, Nuveen sent a brand strategy RFP to five firms, with pitches the week of Thanksgiving. Nuveen now reports marketing in revenue, and the 2027 goal is to grow marketing-only revenue.
The next generation of wealth
Alison Lubert of Green Dot moderated a panel with Stefano Marrone of Siebert Financial, Esti Buskin of Nuveen and Andrew Stief of Bullish and CoinDesk. Stief said trust has unbundled: investors learn on Reddit and TikTok, and company homepages have become the place they go to execute. Buskin cited a Nuveen and TIAA Institute survey in which workers answered about four of 15 basic retirement questions correctly.
Stief's three fixes for the education gap were plain English, education built into the product and consumable formats in place of ten-page white papers. Marrone said Siebert tailors content for military and Hispanic and Latino audiences through partner organizations, which means giving up some message control and creates friction with compliance.
On AI, Stief recommended circuit breakers, such as routing an AI suggestion that conflicts with a customer's investment profile to a human advisor. In the lightning round, Marrone chose in-person events for 2027, Buskin chose impact over content volume and Stief urged firms to find the middle ground between human advisor and robo-investor.
Brand safety when you don't control the channel
Alyssa Gilmore of Bloomberg opened with a Muck Rack finding that 84% of sources cited in AI answers come from earned and third-party content, against 0.3% for paid and advertorial. Chris Andrew of Scrunch said a brand is now what ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity reflect back. Models cite different sources than Google, so small sites matter more, and contradictory information on a company's own website pushes models toward third parties.
Ashok Sinha of Dow Jones said he has reversed his view on press releases because they let a company feed the models its own story, and a spike in traffic to the Dow Jones press blog traced largely to AI. Drew Benson of SMBC Group said the audience now includes the AI agent acting as the customer, and that false information warrants a response when it spreads quickly and reaches key stakeholders.
To prepare for a disinformation campaign 12 months out, Benson recommended stakeholder relationships, monitoring that tests how the narrative performs and clear approval governance. The panel closed on better monitoring, spend aligned to what AI reads and investment in human trust.
What the midterms mean for financial services
Zack Condry, Vested's head of public affairs, briefed the room two days after the midterms. With the administration continuing to deregulate and Democrats set to take committee gavels in January, he said corporate risk shifts from rulemaking to oversight: letters, hearings and subpoenas. He expects Elizabeth Warren to chair Senate Banking.
Condry said CFPB enforcement cases are down 97% from the Biden administration and state attorneys general are now the busiest financial regulators. His advice: build relationships with policymakers and trade associations before they are needed, invest in public affairs and rehearse CEO testimony in full mock hearings.
Priceless for a new generation
Mastercard CMCO Jill Kramer, 11 months into the role, told PGIM's Jaime Kalfus she began by testing whether Priceless, nearly 30 years old, still fit. She researched the original RFP and ran a creative exercise with teams in Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Germany and the US working in their own languages. When the first creative arrived, she asked her team for one word each: emotional, inclusive, joy. Priceless has also extended into small business and security, and the MrBeast partnership serves business, philanthropy and brand goals.
Her working principle is "early, ugly, often." The person who owns the brief joins the first review of ideas, and a five-day agency sprint produced pencil sketches in place of polished presentations. Kramer uses AI at both ends of the process: mining data and testing ideas with synthetic personas for briefs, then modeling scenarios on results.
Our special thanks to this incredible lineup of marketing leaders
> ABBY TREXLER, Managing Director, Vested
> ALISON LUBERT, Head of Corporate Communications & B2B Marketing, Green Dot Corporation
> ALYSSA GILMORE, Chief Operating Officer for Communications, Bloomberg
> ANDREW STIEF, Vice President, Head of Marketing, Bullish
> ASHLEY JONES, Head of Financial Narrative
> ASHOK SINHA, Chief Communications Officer, Dow Jones
> BINNA KIM, Group CEO & Co-Founder, Vested
> BRENDAN SPAIN, VP, Advertising - Americas, Financial Times
> CHRIS ANDREW, CEO and Co-Founder, Scrunch
> CHRIS GIBBONS, Vice President, Media Sales, Financial Services, Dow Jones
> CLAYTON WEIMERS, North America Director, Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
> DAN SIMON, Co-Founder, Financial Narrative; CEO, Qwoted
> DAVID COWEN, President & CEO, Museum of American Finance
> DREW BENSON, Head of Communications for the Americas, SMBC Group
> ERIKA ALTER, Head of Marketing & Communications, FundGuard
> ESTI BUSKIN, Managing Director, Head of Marketing, Retirement, Nuveen
> JAIME KALFUS, Vice President, Brand Strategy & Advertising, PGIM
> JILL KRAMER, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Mastercard
> SHEEVANI RAIKUNDALIA, Executive Head of Financial Services Advertising, North America, Bloomberg
> STEFANO MARRONE, Chief Marketing Officer, Siebert Financial
> TARA GIULIANO, Chief Marketing Officer, Nuveen
> TODD GAYLE, Volunteer Services Manager, Streetwise Partners
> ZACK CONDRY, Head of Public Affairs, Vested
UK Summit in London
A new generation of clients believes in people and culture over institutions, and they can spot a manufactured narrative in seconds. Inside your own firm, the communicators who understand this are earning a seat at the table, not just advising those who sit there.
None of this gets solved on a slide. That's the whole premise behind this year's theme: The Return of the Room. One day. One room. The most senior marketing and communications leaders in financial services, face-to-face.
🗓 Date: Tuesday 24th November
⏰ Time: 8am – 2pm GMT
📍 Location: Charlotte Street Hotel, London
The Financial Narrative UK Summit brings senior marketing and comms leaders together from across financial services, banks, insurers, fintechs, and asset managers for a day of conversation you can't get anywhere else. Spaces are limited. Review the agenda and reserve your seat here >>>