Chief Marketing Officer, State Street Corp.
Over the past year, Hannah Grove has implemented a new “Follow the Sun” strategy for the marketing department of State Street Corp., adding new hires in Poland and India. While the impetus was a desire to cut costs, the results went beyond helping the bottom line.
“We are tapping into really amazing skillsets — social, digital, and analytics,” she said. “It’s more capacity for us to provide better solutions for our stakeholders and reducing reliance on third parties.”
The initiative increased marketing’s headcount by 33%, while reducing staff costs by approximately 10%. Grove, an executive vice president and chief marketing officer, now leads a total of 100 employees in the marketing department. Moving toward a global marketing department also makes sense for the company, given that State Street serves clients in 26 countries with 40,000 employees.
The results of the global hub are a nimbler and increasingly diverse marketing department, Grove said.
“The team we have in India are really sophisticated at giving analytics and dashboard to us on a weekly basis,” she said. “With that we can pivot quickly on strategy.”
See the most recent rankings:
The implementation involved establishing new centers in Bangalore, Krakow, and Gdansk, and developing new processes and infrastructure that enable the team to work together.
Expanding the marketing department was just one part of Grove’s activities over the past year. She also oversaw the communications strategy for State Street’s largest acquisition to date — the $2.6 billion purchase of Charles River Development, a provider of investment management tools. The acquisition is part of State Street’s plan to build a platform that connects the front, middle and back office as a single provider.
Grove also drove the rollout of State Street’s new three-year strategic plan, State Street 2022. The strategy included the creation of an interactive web experience featuring videos and infographics designed to rearticulate the bank’s goals to employees.
