What are your key tasks and responsibilities?

I have two different elements to my role, one of them is working with our corporate partners providing marketing consultancy. They all have their own marketing teams so my job involves merging their knowledge of their marketing with the actual environment of insurance and financial services. I am a customer retention specialist, I work on relationship marketing with the actual brand itself, looking to create more of a friendly relationship with our customers. I have a budget and I agree with the corporate partners how that is going to be spent.

I also work on acquisition with some of our commercial direct partners looking at marketing strategy and customer lifecycle.

Do you think that working in a marketing role in financial services is different from other marketing roles, are their specific skills you need?

A lot of my marketing is probably relationship marketing with partners, whereas I think a lot of people see marketing as a very creative, agency driven role where you are just advertising and selling. My role involves coming up with strategy and the planning, looking at key performance indicators, but in the back of your mind still thinking about the customer.

What was your route into financial services?

My background is a little bit strange! I didn’t know what I wanted to do after school, so I did an HNC in Leisure Management at Perth College, and then a Bachelor of Science with honours in Sport Health & Exercise at Abertay. I found towards the end of university that I lost interest in my own sport, so when I finished university I was looking for something different. I came to work for Aviva as a commercial underwriter.

At Aviva I got involved in things like working with Perth Council on the Business Dynamics Scheme which involves going out to the local schools and giving presentations on marketing and other core skills. When an opportunity came up in the corporate partner marketing team I jumped at the chance to apply.

So did you do any marketing qualifications?

I am currently studying for my Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification (CIM), funded through Aviva. This is the 6th week that I have been doing it. I’m always quite self-motivated so I find it easy to get up and study in the morning.

Have you done other training?

Aviva globally have actually put on some really good marketing courses. I’ve done a fantastic 3 day course on marketing fundamentals which was really good, and enjoyable.

I have had the pleasure of working with some of our colleagues in Aviva Canada, Aviva India and Aviva Europe to develop an online toolbox with all the tools from the fundamentals courses in an e-learning portal. I didn’t actually travel to these places, although we did propose it! We did a lot of teleconferences.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

You know what I actually don’t know! I absolutely love my job. I really appreciate the travelling, getting to different sites and meeting different people. I think the changing role on a daily basis, managing my own time, managing my own workload and managing my stakeholders are all a big factor to me. I think if I was in a role where I went in and did the same thing day after day I would struggle to do that.

What do you find the most challenging?

The biggest thing that I had to overcome moving into corporate marketing was working in a virtual team and being managed remotely. For my first two years I was managed from Norwich and I only saw my manager once every two months, which was a learning curve.

Do you think there are any skills that people need to be successful in financial services?

I think it's determination. I know from myself that the main reason I have developed quite quickly was getting involved in as much as I could, making sure that other people in the building knew who I was, trying to take opportunities rather than sit back.

Anything that surprised you about working in Financial Services?

It was never my plan to work in financial services so its been a learning curve for me all the way through. One  positive thing that might be surprising to people is all the stuff that Aviva get involved in outside financial services, the CSR work that we do, and the other opportunities that are there.

What would you say the culture and work environment is like here?

I would say that in my area, in marketing, it can be fairly relaxed. Working with corporate partners you need to know when to be formal and when to approach the situation with the correct behaviour.

If you could start over would you do anything differently?

Yes and no, in terms of university, I loved my university course and met a lot of good people, I would go back and do a marketing degree but I am now taking steps to make that happen. I learned a lot from my university course, the importance of delivering projects to specific timescales, of management of my time,and a lot of those skills are transferrable to what I do now. I think I have been quite lucky in terms of the role I have gotten into.

Are there any benefits of working for your employer?

At my age you might not be thinking about things like pension, with Aviva we are putting away every month for future life. We get offers and discounts in lots of different places, the bonus and salary scheme is comprehensive. We also get discounts on insurance products, I think I have 5 or 6 products with Aviva: home insurance, 2 car insurance policies, travel insurance, 2 pet insurance policies and a life insurance policy – we get a good deal.

What are the next steps?

Achieve my CIM by December 2011, get that out of the way within a year, I will then potentially engage with my manager to get more funding for a diploma in marketing . I get funding for the course, and books and the exams – if I fail the exam I have to pay for it myself! That’s ok I don’t intend to fail!

It has now been three years since I had staff working for me, since I was a lead underwriter, that’s for me to take up in the next year or so. I have a personal development plan and that is all on there.