In this episode David Cox talks to Alistair Campbell about his book "Healthy Money" and the challenges facing banking.

Campbell, with experience at Standard Chartered, HSBC, NatWest, and in telecom and microfinance, argues banks are structurally disconnected from customers because products, architecture, and leadership prioritize balance-sheet needs, reinforced by cyclical profitability tied to interest rates and regulators’ focus on bank resilience.

Using a “corporate midlife crisis” analogy, they discuss banks dabbling in AI and digital assets without rethinking purpose. Campbell proposes banks shift from reducing friction to engaging customers’ financial lives, redesigning services for modern, complex, and precarious realities (blended families, side hustles, gig work, longer retirements) and evolving architecture from account-centric systems to customer data custodianship that supports relationships, verification, and habits.

They discuss threats from Apple Wallet and other non-banks, trust tradeoffs, early legacy-bank efforts to measure financial health, and AI’s potential to become a personal CFO if banks adapt.

In this episode David Cox talks to Gareth Abel, a seasoned CMO with a global background in marketing.

Gareth discusses his approach to leveraging marketing for sustainable profit growth, particularly in the technology,telecom, consumer electronics, and digital services sectors.

He introduces his playbook, which involves creating a segment map to identify profitable opportunities, defining clear strategies for targeting and positioning, and focusing on both immediate execution and long-term brand building.

Gareth emphasizes the importance of aligning marketing with customer experience to create a cohesive strategy that driveslong-term business success.

The conversation concludes with a practical example of Etihad Airways, illustrating how a strategic approach in both marketing and customer experience led to consistent, long-term success.

In this episode host David Cox talks to Roberto Rittes, the CEO of Nextel Brazil, about his remarkable customer-led transformation of the company.

Roberto describes the challenges Nextel faced, such as financial distress, outdated technology, and high customer churn, and how they overcame them by focusing on customerexperience.

The conversation highlights the importance of reducing friction in customer journeys, employee engagement, and using data-driven methods to improve customer satisfaction.

Roberto shares the results of this transformation, including significant reductions in churn, cost savings, and improved EBITDA, while emphasizing the need for strong leadershipand a clear vision for customer-centric strategies.