Head Of Marketing and Communications: Sanlam Ecosystem – Banking

What will you do?

• The successful candidate will lead the end-to-end marketing strategy, brand positioning, and go-to-market execution for the Sanlam GOtyme Banking-led ecosystem proposition — positioning Sanlam as a credible, modern, digital, and accessible financial services ecosystem.
• This role drives brand reappraisal, customer adoption, ecosystem habit formation, and commercial growth across banking and insurance propositions, integrating seamlessly across clusters, branches, intermediaries, and digital channels.

What will make you successful in this role?

This role is pivotal to Sanlam’s entry into banking and credit, the success of the Sanlam Ecosystem strategy, and the repositioning of Sanlam for the next generation of customers.

This is a senior, highly visible leadership role. The successful candidate will:

• Operate comfortably at Exco and Board level, presenting with clarity and confidence.
• Inspire and influence cross-functional teams without direct authority.
• Translate complex ecosystem strategy into disciplined, measurable execution at scale.
• Build alignment across complex stakeholder environments — internal and external.
• Lead with a growth, innovation, and customer-first mindset.
• Navigate the tension between long-term brand building and short-term commercial performance.

Qualification and Experience

Qualification

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Commerce, or a related field.
• Postgraduate qualification in Marketing, Business Administration, Strategy, or Digital Business (advantageous).

Experience

• 10+ years of senior marketing leadership experience.
• Proven track record in digital, fintech, banking, or financial services marketing.
• Experience leading large-scale GTM programmes with budgets exceeding R100m.
• Demonstrated success in app growth marketing — downloads, activation, retention, and monetisation.
• Deep experience with performance marketing, CRM, marketing automation, and digital analytics platforms.
• Experience integrating physical and digital customer journeys in a multi-channel environment.
• Executive stakeholder management experience, including Exco and Board engagement.

Key Responsibilities

Banking Marketing & Communication Strategy

• Lead the integrated marketing and communication strategy for the Sanlam GOtyme banking ecosystem, positioning Sanlam as a credible, modern, accessible, and aspirational digital bank.
• Support brand reappraisal across mass, emerging middle, and affluent segments, and translate ecosystem strategy into executable go-to-market plans in collaboration with Customer Strategy, Proposition, and Distribution leads.

Leadership & Ecosystem Adoption

• Lead ecosystem marketing with support for Booost, Credit, and Blue App adoption. Establish the Blue App as the primary digital gateway, driving early customer habit formation through rewards, engagement journeys, and usage-led strategies.

Digital Marketing Capabilities

• Own the full digital marketing stack (performance, SEO/SEM, paid media, CRM, email, push, in-app), including app growth (acquisition, onboarding, activation, retention). Build personalised lifecycle marketing through CRM and automation, optimise conversion (CRO), and use data analytics, attribution modelling, and testing (A/B, multivariate) to improve performance. Oversee digital content strategy and champion CDP and first-party data development.

Customer Growth & Commercial Performance

Accountable for marketing’s contribution to:

• Acquisition volumes, CPL/CAC
• Blue App downloads, onboarding, MAU growth
• Account openings and funding
• Credit uptake and usage
• Rewards engagement and retention
• Cross-sell across Sanlam products
• NPS and customer experience metrics

Channel Integration (Physical + Digital)

• Integrate marketing across branches, intermediaries, digital platforms, contact centres, and community channels. Support business unit go-to-market plans and ensure consistent, high-quality customer experiences. Design “phygital” journeys linking in-person engagement to digital adoption and app usage.

Brand, PR & Communication Leadership

• Partner with Group Brand, PR, and Comms to shape Sanlam’s banking narrative, drive thought leadership, and align messaging across internal (staff, intermediaries) and external audiences.

Agency & Partner Management

• Lead all agency partners (creative, media, digital, PR, influencers) and manage joint marketing with TymeBank/GoTyme. Oversee GTM budgets with strong ROI discipline and transparent reporting.

Governance & Stakeholder Alignment

• Align with Group, Fintech, clusters, and governance functions (Legal, Compliance, Procurement). Operate within DOA frameworks and regularly report to Exco on performance, budgets, and ROI.

Technical Skills and Competencies

Digital and Technical:

• Performance marketing and paid media (Meta, Google, programmatic)
• App store optimisation (ASO) and mobile growth
• CRM, marketing automation and lifecycle marketing
• Customer data platforms (CDP) and first-party data strategy
• Digital analytics, attribution, and A/B testing
• SEO/SEM, content strategy, and owned media
• Data-driven decision making and ROI governance

Strategic and Leadership:

• Strategic thinking and commercial acumen
• Brand strategy and repositioning
• Deep understanding of mass market customer behaviour
• Cross-functional leadership and influence
• Executive communication and stakeholder management