Money20/20 Europe: In Conversation with Charlie Gilbert, VP of Marketing Comms at Volt.io
Financial Narrative spent June 3-5 in Amsterdam at Money20/20 Europe for a series of panel discussions and a marcomms networking meetup at the world's biggest, most influential gathering of the global money ecosystem.
We also got a chance to connect with changemaking attendees. In this chat, Charlie Gilbert, VP of Marketing Comms at Volt.io, shares how he's scaling a global brand, humanizing fintech storytelling, and harnessing AI to sharpen strategy and creative output.
What excites you most about Money20/20?
I'm exploring quite a few different new connections. I'm meeting journalists, potential partners, existing partners... I'm collecting lots of really cool anecdotal evidence on the strength of the Volt brand. I absolutely love speaking to people about their perceptions of our capabilities and the look and feel of Volt—it's incredibly valuable feedback.
Dare I say it—better than data? That's one to explore, maybe at a later date.
I'm also looking at potential resource assistance. I'm a bit of a one-man band at Volt at the moment, so I'm always interested in potential collaborations, validating my own ideas on a few creative things, and looking at how to really maximize a few exciting announcements we've got coming up in the next few months.
What's the biggest challenge for marcomms leaders in your role today?
I think it might be a tale as old as time in the fintech space—but my job, and the part that I get the most reward from (but is by far the biggest challenge), is the storytelling element behind what is often a complex, technical product.
It's about making that tangible and attractive to our prospects. So really digging into the tech side of things, working closely with our product and tech personnel to understand why we’re building something, how that compares to what’s currently in the market, and how it’s going to drive future innovation.
And get noticed by—well—some of the biggest enterprise names on the planet. If they’re using our solutions, then it’s clearly landing as a tangible, exciting proposition.
That's really my biggest challenge in a nutshell: I’ve got to do justice to the amazing tech and products that we build. It’s a daily challenge. It's evolving—market conditions evolve daily, regulatory conditions evolve daily, and our product map is constantly evolving. But that’s the kind of challenge that gets me out of bed in the morning, and I absolutely love it.
What marcomms trends are capturing your attention lately?
One thing I’ve noticed this year—especially in the B2B fintech space—are companies are starting to speak more like people. Plain English, I think, has almost been seen as a negative in the past.
If my mum or dad understands what Volt does when they visit the website, then I kind of think that’s a job well done.
A trend that’s hopefully disappearing over the last 5 to 10 years is visiting a financial services website and not really understanding what the company actually does. That dense, often unintelligible language that could apply to five or six different business models? I think it’s going.
You’re now seeing companies emerging—like in the EU, there’s Wallet, for example—and the way they talk and position themselves is more tangible and relatable.
I think for fintech and payments brands to stand out now, that’s what they’re going to have to do. Because that’s what the competition is doing. That’s what we’re trying to do at Volt.
So yeah—I really hope that trend continues.
What aspect of your job are you excited for AI to take over?
One example that springs to mind recently was wanting to put together a competitor matrix for a big pitch we were doing. Two years ago, this would’ve been a research project we’d have commissioned with an agency. Now—I can use AI to build that.
It lets me learn things at scale, incredibly quickly.
Another thing I’m really excited about is using AI to measure brand credibility and awareness. There are a few tools I’m exploring now that can assess brand sentiment among your target audience—which is amazing. It can even compare that sentiment to your competitors.
We’re at a very early stage of this, but over the next six months, we’ll be using AI agents to make our team and our output really, really efficient.
But also—I'd say—best in class at certain marketing functions.
And that, I think, is mega exciting. We’re on the cusp of an AI revolution. It’s already started, and it’s only going one way.
As marketers, it’s now our responsibility to capitalize on that—adopt it in the best possible way—and help drive it forward.