Group head of marketing and communications, Mashreq Bank
Additional positions
• Mum
• Part-time gardener
Years in current position: 1.5
Years in company: 1.5
Size of department: 35+
Previous jobs
With HSBC for 10 years: started as head of comms for commercial banking, MENA; then global head of campaigns for the commercial bank in London; then shifted to the marketing world, to become global head of marketing strategy, global banking and markets; and finally (briefly) global head of marketing strategy, wholesale corporates.
Recent campaigns
The team has done a great job in driving earned coverage of our digital capabilities and direction; we’ve seen a massive shift in the tone and frequency of coverage we’ve achieved. On the marketing side, we had a really impactful Eid campaign with digital Eiditya just after we onboarded Sweetwater, our first foray together. There has been some great work from the team driving partnerships with Baskin-Robbins and, most recently, Dunkin’ Donuts – people like sweet treats; who knew?
What is your goal in your current role?
To help people understand that Mashreq is truly a customer-centric, digitally fluent bank, and to listen and learn when they disagree.
Do you have a guiding principle?
Never stop learning.
How do you make agency relationships work?
Honesty and open conversations.
What work do you wish you had done?
Nike.
Who inspires you professionally?
My friends. I know so many hard-working, dedicated, creative people. No big names, just really solid humans who are doing great work and being great people at the same time.
What is the biggest challenge in marketing at the moment?
Maintaining enough focus on brand as we continue to pick up speed in delivery, across more and more channels, to customers who are bombarded with more and more messages.
What is the next big opportunity in marketing?
The ‘whys’ aren’t changing, it’s just the ‘hows’. Keeping sight of that and navigating all of the new platforms in an authentic way, will be the key.
What can we expect to see from you and your brand in the next year?
Hopefully, you’ll see us popping up in places that you haven’t seen banks before. We’ll be in all the usual places, but we’ve got some interesting ideas of new ways to start conversations. Watch this space.
Recent achievements
Mainly internal, to be honest. The initial task was to pull together a group function out of a number of teams spread out across the bank, taking lots of talented individuals doing great work and fitting them together into a new structure. Together we’ve worked out new ways of working, identifying some really interesting ‘leaps’ we can do as a team to drive creative ideation and delivery, to collectively build brand awareness and love in 2022. It’s their work, not mine, but I’m very proud of them as a team.
Rapid fire
What are you working on?
Brand love.
Who are you following?
Real people: nano influencers, community leaders, opinionated individuals.
What are you craving?
An afternoon on the ocean. Work gets in the way of sailing.
What are you hiding from?
The gym.
What are you playing?
Games with my kids. Our current favourite is re-enacting ‘Magic Claw’ from Bluey.
What are you listening to?
Spotify daily mixes: Bedouine, Emmy the Great, Arlo Park and other chilled tunes. Often interrupted by the dulcet tones of Big Block Sing Song. If you have kids, I highly recommend their Greatest Hits.
What are you reading?
Most recently I loved Klara & The Sun by Ishiguro.
What are you watching?
Bake Off and Taskmaster.
What is your good habit?
Drinking water
What is your bad habit?
Sitting at my desk too much and not wandering around more.
Agency reference
Tom Alexander Gray, executive director, Sweetwater MEA
Aimee has consistently been the central conduit driving fundamental change in the brand’s narrative in an industry sector traditionally slow to transform. Her ability to engage stakeholders at all levels and bring them with her on the journey has been extremely impressive to watch and be part of. She is always looking at the bigger picture and usually several steps ahead of most. She has been the catalyst behind fundamentally changing the way Mashreq sees itself, its staff and, most importantly, its customers.
I have worked with Aimee for the last eight months and I am most proud of the central brand story work, where Aimee has worked tirelessly in bringing diverse stakeholders together and, more importantly, keeping them engaged along the entire journey, often out of their comfort zones.
Aimee is an intensely strategic thinker. She is wonderfully empathetic to the needs of all around her. She listens to all points of view but has an arrow-like precision when it comes to delivering on campaign goals.
I have learned from Aimee the ability to really bring diverse minds with her on her journeys of change and, equally importantly, to make those minds feel completely engaged with the process. She works tirelessly behind the scenes to make these mind-melding moments happen.
We are now in pre-production for our public launch of our new brand narrative. I’m very excited to see what everyone thinks.
