Latest news with #Craddock
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Citi marketing chief looks to ‘reenergize' the bank's brand
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. Following an overhaul of Citi's wealth strategy, the marketing efforts to elevate and grow the business have gotten a refresh, too. Under Chief Marketing and Content Officer Alex Craddock, who joined Citi just over a year ago, the bank has restructured its marketing department to better support its broader vision, and hired for several new marketing roles, including a head of wealth marketing, a head of banking and markets marketing, a head of sponsorships and partnerships, and a head of marketing innovation, he said. New York-based Citi has doubled down on growth in its wealth segment, which had struggled in the past but has become a key piece to improving the bank's business mix by adding more fee-based revenue. Andy Sieg joined Citi in 2023 as head of wealth, and the lender has leaned into improving productivity and taking advantage of its global footprint to expand the business. Craddock pointed to wealth as an area ripe for opportunity when it comes to reinvigorating the bank's brand. With its marketing efforts, Citi aims to think about its brand more holistically and make sure business marketing is aligned with the broader brand strategy, Craddock told Banking Dive last week. Content also falls under Craddock's purview, and the approach there has changed, too. 'We're not just producing content and putting out a 50-page white paper,' he said. 'We're really thinking a lot more strategically' about content format, distribution, and ensuring content creators are working closely with Citi's business units, 'to ensure that we're stitching together the macro thought leadership with very specific content for businesses on how you can act on that thought leadership,' he said. Editor's note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. ALEX CRADDOCK: We unified a fragmented marketing team: Business marketing was embedded in the businesses, enterprise marketing was centralized, and we needed to bring everybody together under me and my new role. We set the vision early on. The vision we aligned around is accelerating Citi's growth by winning the hearts and minds of existing and prospective clients through a distinct, Citi-branded client experience. That came about through a group exercise that we did to narrow down, what is it that we want to set as our North Star for the new team? So much of marketing is an experience. It's not one touch point. It's how you screw together different touch points, and, importantly, how you string those touch points together as a complement to what other partners in the business are doing, like sales, customer service or people in branches. We needed to think about that experience holistically. With Andy Sieg coming in, laying out an exciting vision and an impressive business strategy for wealth, it was evident that if we were going to support that, we needed to unify our wealth marketing under one leader. So we now have a new head of wealth marketing who started recently, Patty Sachs. We see opportunities to reenergize the brand, and wealth is a great example. We recognized, as we were bringing all the individual parts of the wealth business together, we needed to develop a new proposition and a new brand platform to launch that proposition to market. So we reposition wealth in the minds of our clients and ensure that it meets the business that we are today, and not some perception of who we were in the past. We did a lot of work when I came in through last year, to really understand our clients' needs, understand our landscape and identify a client audience that is the right kind for Citi to go after, and build a proposition and a platform to reach them. What we've called the world's change-makers. When you look at what exists today, a lot of wealth is around wealth preservation or a focus on retirement. The world change-maker audience is focused on wealth creation, and often multigenerational wealth creation. They're often international in the way they live their lives, but also in business. Given our unique global footprint – 180 markets around the world – we are probably best-suited to serve a client of that type. It's thinking about marketing as much more of a strategic business driver and growth accelerator than it has been in the past, which was very much about events and loyalty to existing clients. That's a really important pillar, but I think there were many pillars around that that we weren't activating. We didn't do an awful lot in paid media, our email marketing probably wasn't as sophisticated, or we weren't thinking about cross-sell. That's where a much more data-driven approach to marketing is important. We've identified wealth as a business but also a subbrand – that's a big difference. Before, wealth was fragmented: there was Citi Private Bank, we had Citigold and Citigold Private Client, and we had Citi Global Wealth at Work. But we never really thought about the three together. We never thought about that continuum of wealth and how we can align our wealth businesses around this new target audience we've identified. Also, making sure that through the marketing, we're telling the story. The great work that's been done to redesign our wealth business, redesign our product and solution offering – that's a story that needs to be told to existing clients, but also prospective clients, so we're positioning wealth the right way relative to our peer set around the world. We're focused on three key priorities. One is around content creation, and how we can start to accelerate creation of written and visual content. The other is around personalization: how can we use AI to personalize content, whether that's for specific client segments, or how we personalize, for example, our credit card marketing real-time? That can be accelerated with [artificial intelligence]. The third is around validation. We are producing a vast amount of content across the firm. It's hard for humans to make sure it is all on-brand. We can use AI to do that validation and make recommendations as to how we might want to augment certain aspects of our content to make sure that it is consistent with brand guidelines. The other part we're exploring is compliance approvals: how do we accelerate the speed at which we are getting compliance approval for content, by using AI to do a lot of that heavy lifting for us? As a firm, we've invested a lot in AI platforms, large language models. We have some desktop tools that we're using that are helping us draft content, summarize content. What we are exploring in marketing is, how can we build agents on top of large language models to help us do some of those jobs? We're building the expertise and knowledge in-house, but we're complementing that with third-party AI solutions where it makes sense, because they bring something distinctive that we couldn't build ourselves, or it would take too long to build. I keep encouraging the team to think about our AI in marketing as human-plus-AI is always going to be greater in the future than just a human or just AI. That helps eliminate some of the fear that inherently gets driven by AI, but also excites people around the opportunity. Errore nel recupero dei dati Effettua l'accesso per consultare il tuo portafoglio Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Church's peregrine chicks hatch after 9-year wait
A church is celebrating the arrival of its first peregrine falcon chicks in almost a decade. Three chicks hatched inside a nesting box on the west front of St Wulfram's Church at Grantham in Lincolnshire two weeks ago. Father Stuart Craddock, Rector of Grantham, said: "They're developing into some really healthy-looking peregrine falcons." He described it as "brilliant news" and is asking members of the public to suggest names for the trio. Father Craddock said it has been about nine years since the church has has a successful clutch of Peregrine falcon eggs. A nesting box was built a number of years ago by Lincolnshire Bird Trust and the eggs were finally laid on 31 March. Visitors can watch a live feed of the birds, broadcast inside the church from a camera planted near the nest. "Lots of people are coming into church to see them which is great," Father Craddock said. "You can see them walking about and scratching at the gravel in the tray and eating whatever mum and dad bring to them. It's really interesting." Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Three peregrine falcon chicks hatch at Cathedral Peregrine falcons lay eggs at cathedral Cathedral sees first falcon chicks in four years St Wulfram's Church
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
'Time has come': Stunning call for Allan Langer to backflip on Broncos role
Allan Langer and the Broncos are being urged to reconsider his move into a corporate role in a bid to spark the struggling NRL team. Michael Maguire's side have lost five of their last six games, falling to eighth on the ladder after 12 rounds. The Broncos started the season in superb form, and many experts had them as genuine premiership contenders. But questions are now starting to emerge about the culture and vibe at the club under Maguire. It comes after Langer moved into a corporate role in 2025, ending his iconic stint as the club's trainer and assistant coach. Langer decided the arrival of Maguire to replace Kevin Walters was a good time for him to change and move into a role working with the club's corporate partners. But his return as trainer for Billy Slater's Queensland team has shown he still loves that role as well. And it's seen leading reporter Robbert Craddock question whether Langer and the Broncos should reverse their arrangement and get him back running the water. Langer is known for his ability to keep things light off the field and in the dressing room, and he's in charge of organising the Maroons' social gatherings during Origin camp. He's so popular with the players, and his absence at training and on game days would no doubt be having an effect at the Broncos. "The time has come for the Broncos to give serious consideration to getting Allan Langer, mood-lightener extraordinaire, to swap his smartly ironed corporate shirt for his old water bottle and return as club trainer," Craddock wrote in on Monday. "Who better to add humour, spirit and enjoyment to a team craving all three." Craddock said watching Langer in Queensland camp showed him what the Broncos have been missing. " at his best in the dressing room," Craddock added. "Two years ago when the Broncos won nearly all their away games, skipper Adam Reynolds said one of the key reasons was the entertainment factor of having Langer's lightness and humour on tour." Last year when the Broncos announced Langer was switching roles, Craddock predicted it would have a detrimental effect for the players. The Broncos and Maroons legend said of his return to the Origin fold earlier this month: "It's wonderful – it's the three best weeks of the year. The joy of being here and seeing these young guys and they still show you the respect is just a great feeling." Tellingly, the 58-year-old recently declared the Broncos are 'lacking team spirit at the moment." He added: "The senior players have to get the group together and work out what is going wrong. Because it's hard for the coaching staff or anyone outside the playing doesn't look great watching it, especially the last few weeks." RELATED: NRL world saddened over new revelation about Steve Mortimer Bulldogs State of Origin rep facing the axe once Galvin arrives Maybe Langer is the perfect man to show the players where they're going wrong. At the very least he'd provide a huge boost to moral and be a leader in the sheds. Craddock wrote last week: "The sight of Langer at Queensland training, making people smile as he always does, was a reminder that maybe the Broncos were too hasty in shifting him from his playing day role as a trainer to become a corporate mingler. Langer is much more than a trainer. He's a bush psychologist who knew when players were down and needed a lift or a laugh. The current Broncos could do with a laugh."
Scotsman
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Here & Now showcase aims to 'push boundaries' at Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Whether theatre, dance or art installation, the work in this year's Here & Now showcase aims to surprise as well as to entertain, writes Mark Fisher Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... For all the stress, expense and commitment of bringing a show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, there are reasons performers keep coming back. They include the excitement of participating in the world's biggest arts festival, the chance to meet fellow artists and the opportunity to see great shows around the clock. There is also something else: given the right conditions, a run on the Fringe is an invaluable way to be seen by the right people. If you are spotted by a producer, it can sustain your career for the rest of the year. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Kate Craddock, artistic director of Here & Now, a showcase of productions from England, gives an example. Last year, the choreographer Patrick Ziza performed Dandyism in Edinburgh and has hardly paused for breath since. 'Their journey has just been incredible,' she says. 'They're going to Brazil, Toronto, Norway, and they've been in New York. They were all direct invitations from the Here & Now delegates. It's extraordinary for them. And that's just one example.' Khalid Abdall in Nowhere | Helen Murray Such success is not a given. The intention of Here & Now, which returns to the Fringe this August, is 'to challenge ideas about what performance created in England might look like'. It is not, in other words, a sturdy collection of classical dramas. No rounded vowels and grand soliloquies here. Rather, it is a line-up of theatre, dance and art installation that aims to surprise as well as to entertain. 'All the works are finished and ready to go but also they're experimenting with form in some way,' says Craddock. 'They're pushing at the boundaries of what you might otherwise see at the Fringe.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As with similar Fringe programmes from countries including Scotland, Belgium and South Korea, Here & Now presents a line-up of half-a-dozen shows that would normally be impossible for international programmers to see in such a short period. This year, it has invited a 30-strong delegation of its own, in addition to the many other programmers who will be in town. 'The level of exposure is unbeatable,' she says. So much for the industry. Craddock is adamant that Here & Now would be nothing if it did not connect with audiences. Brought up in Glasgow and now living in north-east England, she has fashioned a programme she hopes will have local as well as international appeal. 'It's really important to me to make connections with people who are in Edinburgh year round,' says Craddock, who also runs the Gateshead International Festival Of Theatre (GIFT). Andy Smith's A Citizens' Assembly | Ross Finnie Nowhere more is that the case than in Andy Smith's A Citizens' Assembly, a climate crisis show that turns the audience into actors. The aim is to transform us from helpless victims of global heating into activists trying to do something about it. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'You're inviting the audience to be the work,' says Craddock. 'It goes from a scripted, constructed conversation to something that is free. I programmed it last year in Newcastle and it resonated with everybody. In Edinburgh, it will be presented in St Columba's by the Castle and we're already inviting climate justice groups and community groups who engage with the church.' The season also includes the welcome return of Last Rites by Glasgow performer Ramesh Meyyappan in collaboration with George Mann, director of Bristol's Ad Infinitum. Seen briefly in Scotland last year, it is both an exquisite portrait of a funeral ritual, as a son lays an estranged father to rest, and an angry condemnation of a society that discriminates against users of sign language. Last Rites by Ad Infinitum | Mihaela Bodlovic Elsewhere, Sleight of Hand by Jo Bannon is a sensory touch tour aiming to make us experience the world anew; Nowhere by Khalid Abdalla is a multimedia reflection on the 2011 Egyptian revolution (Abdalla will be familiar to fans of Netflix series The Crown thanks to his role as Dodi Fayed); and IV by SERAFINE1369 is a dance piece exploring stillness. 'Politics are prevalent this year, and there is a breadth of lived experience and the communities being represented,' says Craddock. At the meeting point of the personal, the political and the joyful is The Legends Of Them by Sutara Gayle. Running at Zoo Southside, it is a one-woman spiritual awakening that reflects a life of extraordinary highs and lows. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Once best known as a reggae singer, under the name of Lorna Gee, Gayle reinvented herself as an actor at the age of 40 and now has a CV that stretches from The Dark Knight to Ghosts. Tragically, in 1985, her sister, Cherry Groce, was paralysed after being shot by the Metropolitan police, a mistake that sparked the Brixton riots. As if that were not enough, Gayle's show also takes in stories of prison, sexual assault and a spiritual renaming ceremony. Sutara Gayle in Legends of Them | Harry Elletson With a mother who was part of the Windrush generation and a sister with a pivotal place in London's history, Gayle sees politics everywhere. 'Even the joyfulness is politics, man!' she grins with the infectious happiness of a woman who has come to terms with her past. Rather than opening old wounds, she has found the process of revisiting these traumas to be liberating. 'It's proven to be very healthy,' says Gayle, whose show emerged from a silent retreat. 'All these stories were coming to me; things I hadn't thought about for 40 years. It was the first time I had been silent in my life and, all of a sudden, these things started coming up. I realised it was stuff I had buried.' She continues: 'Because things were quite traumatic, I chose not to deal with them. This is sometimes what we do. I didn't want to feel that pain again. But if you don't deal with it, it's going to be there. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I held shame for so many years. It stopped me from doing what I really wanted to do. I'm 62 and the rest of my life I'm going to live happy. Anything I do, I'm going to do from a place of joy and love, not fear. I've held on to fear for too long. There came a point when I thought I'm going to bare myself naked. It has been really freeing, a weight off my shoulders. And watching the show sets you free.'
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
POULTRY TO PASTRIES: Dothan organization working to give back to those in need
DOTHAN, Ala. (WDHN) — Many Americans face hardships for different reasons, but one local organization is looking to give back to the community. On Thursday, the Dothan housing organization partnered with the Wiregrass Food Bank and opened its doors to the public for its very first community-wide food giveaway. The Resident Services Department put together the giveaway, and from poultry to pastries, the residents had plenty of food to choose from. 'We have fresh meat, we have fresh produce, we have some sweets, we have bread, we have a lot of different items here today,' said Resident Services Director Samiyah Craddock. Craddock says that the organization ran multiple assessments, where they discovered that many people still faced food insecurities. Even with other means of assistance, like SNAP benefits. So, instead of hosting the giveaway at one of the four locations the organization oversees, they decided to give back to the entire community. 'It's the greatest mission that we cover. It's to make sure that we provide and meet their needs,' said Craddock. It didn't take long for the people to start rolling in, where they could grab what they needed and wanted on a first-come, first-served basis. And from the looks of it, guests were more than happy. 'At the end of the day, y'all are blessed to give us anything to eat; because some folks don't have nothing to eat,' said resident Elvis Lewis. Craddock says that she understands the tough times that some people may go through in life, but she wants people to know that coming to a giveaway such as this is nothing to be ashamed about if you truly need help. 'It's not always a handout. This is a helping hand. You may not have it today, but tomorrow you will…It's no limit, we're not asking any questions; we just want all the food to go to someone who needs it,' said Craddock. Craddock says that any food left over will be donated to other charities in need. For this to be the organization's first-ever community-wide food giveaway, the crowd was much larger than expected. However, the organization is planning to host another community-wide giveaway in May. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
