Eric Fulwiler joins 11:FS

Driving growth and building your brand is tough. Everyone has a voice. But that means working harder, and smarter, as our new CMO Eric Fulwiler knows only too well.

Eric Fulwiler is an expert on how to deliver content, to scale and at a cadence that would put many to shame.

As a former MD at VaynerMedia, he opened and scaled the digital agency’s EMEA headquarters in London. Vayner are a major digitally native firm, working with some of the biggest brands as clients. It’s also one that has been happy to play the feisty outsider to the larger incumbent groups.

Sound familiar?

“I’ve witnessed the success of the 11:FS brand and business stem from a best-in-class approach to content-driven marketing,” he says. “From the trio of podcasts, videos, blogs, and events, anything and everything the team does starts and ends with the question of 'how can we add value through content or experiences?'”

That aligns perfectly to one of our core values: outcomes not outputs. It’s almost as if he’s always been an 11 at heart.

As CMO for 11:FS, Eric has a lot of his plate. He’s tasked with the continued expansion of the 11:FS business, extending its brand recognition and seeking out new revenue opportunities globally.

But it’s a challenge he’s relishing.

"There's so much opportunity in the digital future of financial services. The team here is just getting started. It's amazing what they've done in three short years and I hope to add some fuel to that fire,” he explains.

That team has already delivered digital financial services projects for firms including NatWest’s Mettle business banking service and Standard Chartered. Eric will be focussed on ensuring the scale of those projects, their number and their location, from the UK to Africa, through to APAC and round to North America, continue to grow.

With Eric we can continue to create digital experiences for ourselves and our clients, and through his expertise and guidance build on our Media strengths

David M. Brear, 11:FS Group CEO

That’s before we even get to 11:FS Pulse and making it the essential tool for anyone and everyone that wants to create digital financial services products and services. Eric will be working with the Research and Benchmarking team to actively involve, build and extend the community in Pulse. That means innovation, product and design teams across the spectrum of incumbent banks, challenger firms and fintechs.

Then there’s the small business of our modular banking infrastructure, 11:FS Foundry, coming to market. It will be delivering secure, digitally native banking propositions to scale and at speed, with our partners at DNB as first client. If the incumbents aren’t worried they should be because he will be focussing on getting Foundry top of mind for anyone considering building digital financial services.

So yeah, he’s going to be busy.

The “we’re going to need a bigger boat” GIF from Jaws gets an outing at least once a month on the 11:FS Slack. That’s going to become a daily occurrence with Eric on board (pun very much intended…)

Adding value through content

The 11:FS Media team has played an integral role of the company’s success, building and supporting the evolution of the firm’s brand.

Eric is determined to take chart-topping properties such as Fintech Insider and newer ones including the livestreamed shows OnAir and Homescreen, which is an integral part of the community-building strategy for 11:FS Pulse, and use his experience and know-how to build upon them both for 11:FS and its clients to drive the next phase of growth.

Content is the most effective tool for collecting and capturing attention. Good content, and lots of it, in all three of the forms we consume - written, video and audio.

“Adding value is our North Star at 11:FS. We try our best to produce content and experiences that will be valuable to the financial services community. Educational or entertaining, and ideally both, and distributed to where people are, not where we want them to be,” he comments.

Anything and everything we do starts and ends with the question of “how can we add value through content or experiences?”

Eric Fulwiler, 11:FS CMO

Volume matters. It’s about quality and quantity. The world is starving for good content that educates or entertains. So much attention is there for the taking.

“The best marketing takes the ‘add value’ model and activates it on channels where attention is cheap. Sounds simple, and really, the concept is. But as with most things, the idea is the easy part - it’s the execution that matters. Adding value consistently over-time is what builds great brands and drives real, sustained growth,” he adds.

Naturally, in week one, he’s not taking the credit for the execution of the model at 11:FS, but that approach and mindset was a huge draw. He’s appeared on Fintech Insider and been a friend the company for a long time. And now he’s on the inside to build on those foundations and build new offerings.

“I’ve seen the success of the brand and business stem from the ‘add value’ marketing model the team has deployed since day one. It’s a big part of what drew me to the opportunity and why my perspective fits well with the team.

Even in my first week, spending time at Money 20/20, I can already tell how important our audience and community has been to our success.”

But Eric isn’t all about content and marketing. A born and bred Bostonian, he’s a fan of all New England-related sports - from the all-winning, all-the-time Patriots NFL team to the NBA’s Celtics and Fenway Park’s residents, the MLB’s Red Sox. Naturally, that also means he’s not a fan of anything NY Sports related.

If you want to join the growing team at 11:FS, head on over to our careers page to get in touch.