Samantha is dynamic, passionate, and will inspire everyone with her vision for the industry and the positive impact that companies can make to the lives of every day consumers
With more than 25 years of experience, Samantha Paxson is a growth and business transformation strategist in Fintech, building the intersection of technology, operational, experience, and brand architecture to rapidly scale revenue, retention, compression reduction, and uncover, then operationalize new market segments and strategies to grow. As the only executive promoted into the role and one of two women on the team, she's helped expand the organization from $136M on a path to nearly $1B, by developing evolutionary strategies to transform a 40-year-old organization into a truly platform-based ecosystem leading experience transformation and growth. In doing so she greatly improved the culture improving employee NPS scores by 504%, raised the client net promoter score by 84%, moved the renewal rate from 67% to 95%, and more than doubled annual contract revenue - all in three years. As a passionate "intrapreneur", Samantha founded CO-OP THINK 16 years ago, an innovation content platform empowering the evolution of mission-driven financial services which has partnered world-renowned thought leaders with thousands of financial services executives - shifting the hearts and minds of financial traditionalists. This platform has outperformed all B2B industry benchmarks by at least double and delivers 3x the contract size of all other sales engagement methodologies. She serves as the editor of THINK Review, is a contributor to Forbes and is a prolific speaker delivering insights on human-based leadership, digital transformation, modern strategy, payments and experience design. Her governance leadership has included private and not for profit boards and advisories currently sits on four boards in leadership roles: including a $1B community FI, USC Credit Union ALCO leader and compensation committee chair, lending tech start-up, LenderClose, CMNH CU4K Board Vice Chair, the LA 5050 Women on Boards co-chair and Selection Board for the Herb Wegner Awards. Previous governance includes OpenIDEO Challenge on "Financial Empowerment", Techstars mentor, CUNA Awareness Committee Board Member, NCUF Board Member and the Filene Research Council on Emerging Technology. Her career includes building world-class brands during transformational times, as the youngest account director at her agency including Hurley, Aston Martin, Tesla, Jaguar, Fender Records, Yokohama Tires, Ford, AMEX and Hoteles Camino Real. She has negotiated brand partnerships with Jean Chatzky, Yoobi, IDEO, Upworthy, Clinton Global Initiative, The White House and consultancies with THINK contributors. Paxson is a graduate of USC Annenberg School and Stanford University's FANFE executive education program and is currently pursuing an MBA at USC's Marshall School of Business. She is passionate about health and wellness and resides in Manhattan Beach with her husband and son.
Key Takeaways: The importance of a human-centric digital strategy
· The consumer is at the center of transformation and growth for the business, it’s our capacity to understand them and take collective action that will set the pace.
· How to manage organizational digital transformation keeping the consumer experience at the center of the process.
· The role of technology in the process – making sure a complete ecosystem emerges to make seamless, secure and convenient all digital services.
· The role of values in the process – working as partners within the organization and with outside stakeholders; communicating openly and honestly; demonstrating excellence; and commitment to change agency.
Designing the financial experience around the consumer, rather around our own myopic product and retail operations, grows economic participation and loyalty to compete with FinTech providers and become the Primary Financial Relationship
Key Takeaways: Key leadership qualities and approaches to modern leadership in the digital age
· Connecting Human and Digital requires transformative leadership. It means that qualities once perceived as detrimental to leadership are now indispensable.
· These qualities include being a nurturing, good coach; communicating and listening well, having empathy, and being supportive of colleagues.
· In short, it’s time to “Human Up”!
Key Takeaways: How to design your business to grow while competing with the worlds largest and fastest and most admired companies
· Know your consumer like never before – leverage the power of data
· Be their choice for every moment – embed yourself into daily habits and their lifestyle, rather than just their life stage
· Embrace the power of connection – how to become a platform ecosystem, rather than just a retail provider of products and services
· In essence, design your company around your consumer