Chief Marketing Officer
With many of her colleagues around the globe still working at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, State Street’s Hannah Grove has begun taking what she calls a “surround sound” approach to communicating with them.
She has started writing a weekly blog, become a more frequent user of video chatting tools and has even taken to mailing handwritten notes to employees who may need words of encouragement. “In this new normal ... relying too much on one medium can get overwhelming,” said Grove, who has been State Street’s chief marketing officer since 2010. “How many emails can people really absorb?”
Grove said her primary responsibilities are to bring the voice of the client to the organization and to make sure clients’ needs are being met. It’s why, a few years back, she introduced the net promoter score at State Street, a metric that is widely used in business-to-consumer settings but less so in the business-to-business world.
The score is a gauge of how favorably customers overall think of a company and whether they are likely to recommend a product or service to others, and over the past year State Street’s score has increased sharply as the metric has helped it better anticipate people’s needs.
Grove has also pushed the company to move away from PowerPoint presentations filled with charts and business speak and engage clients through powerful storytelling that aims to “demystify and simplify” financial services. On Grove’s watch, State Street formed a group focused on client experience that is now run by Julia McCarthy, State Street’s head of client onboarding.
Grove is planning to retire around the end of November and pursue spots on corporate boards. In addition to financial services, she has her eye on companies in retail, aviation and life sciences, all industries undergoing significant transformation, she said.
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