Atom Continues Drive to Build Customer-Centric Bank With New Marketing Hire

Atom, the firm applying to be the UK’s first bank designed for digital, has strengthened its senior team with the appointment of Lisa Wood, formerly Head of Marketing at first direct. Lisa will be taking up the position of Chief Marketing Officer, responsible for marketing, PR and product and proposition development as Atom seeks to build a brand that is truly customercentric.

Lisa joins from first direct where she was responsible for the refresh of the brand by bringing in stronger use of social media channels to engage a younger audience. In this role, Lisa led a number of successful campaigns, including the Barry the Platypus advertising campaign, to reinvigorate the brand and increase new customer recruitment.

Prior to this, Lisa was Head of Customer Propositions for the HSBC Expat business, based in Jersey. Here she was responsible for repositioning the HSBC brand in the offshore banking sector, giving it focus and relevance to its key audience of UK expats living all around the world.

Commenting on her decision to join Atom, Lisa said: “Rarely in your career do you get to combine all the knowledge and experience you’ve gained along the way in creating something you really believe in, a better bank being built from the bottom up around what customers really want and value. Having a clean sheet of paper, building a brand from scratch and with a group of people who are passionate about what they’re doing was too good an opportunity to miss!”

Speaking about the new addition to the team, Mark Mullen, Atom’s Chief Executive said: “We’re delighted to have Lisa onboard, helping us create a new digital bank that’s truly customer-centric. She understands how a bank without branches works, and knows what today’s consumers want from their bank. She also has a great deal of experience in developing propositions and bringing them to a market in a way that can challenge people’s views of the banking industry. Lisa’s arrival is yet another major building block in our drive to build a truly revolutionary proposition for customers.”

Editors notes: Atom isn’t yet a bank, but we’d like to be. So we’re applying to the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to become one.

Founded a year ago and based in the City of Durham, we have a growing team of people drawn from across the country working with local and national partners in the UK to help bring pioneering technology to Europe for the first time. We are building the UK’s first bank designed specifically for mobile digital technologies offering all day, every day banking and a very efficient cost model.

We have a highly experienced executive team, led by CEO Mark Mullen who has 25 years’ experience in commercial and retail banking and was previously CEO at the multi-award winning telephone and internet bank, first direct. He is supported by Dave McCarthy, Edward Twiddy, Stewart Bromley, Lisa Wood, Craig Iley, Rachel McLauchlan, Brian Seal, Andy Givens, Paul Hanks and Richard Baker – a senior team drawn from across the financial services and related industries.

We have a strong non-exec board; our Chairman Anthony Thomson was founder and former Chairman at Metro Bank. He is also Chairman of the Financial Services Forum, the UK’s leading membership organisation for senior FS industry executives and Chairman of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services, a national charity. Anthony is joined by nonexecutive directors Bridget Rosewell OBE, Patricia Jackson, John Deane and Jon Hogan.