The Global CMO Growth, Governance and Getting It Right in New Markets

Thank you very much uh to all of you for joining us today. Obviously a huge thank you to Abu Dhabi and the ADGM for putting on another fantastic Abu Dhabi finance week and thank you to our panelists. Um just to kick off to give you a bit of an explainer what we'll cover today. Um, I think we've all seen the rapid ascent of the UAE as a as a global hub for for digital finance and fintech innovation. Obviously, with multinationals coming into the region, coming to new markets um involves factoring new challenges and and aligning marketing one's business with kind of local interests.

So, to help us dive into this subject, we're joined by Dave King, Rachel Conlin. To kick off, Dave, do you want to just share a bit about yourself and and digitalist and then and then Rachel to follow?

Of course. Good afternoon everyone. Thanks Darius and thanks to uh ADGM. I'm Dave King, chief executive and founder of Digitalis. We're in we're a technology business but we're an online intelligence investigations and reputation platform.

We help governments and large corporations not only with market entry as we're talking about today, but also in other in other situations where people come under scrutiny internationally.

Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Conlin. I'm the global chief marketing officer of Binance. For those that don't know, we're the largest global exchange, not just by trading volume, but by users. We we just hit the milestone of 300 million users earlier this week. And I'm particularly excited to be here in Abu Dhabi Finance Week.

um my personal home and now my professional home as earlier this week um we had a very significant milestone by becoming the first globally registered and licensed uh exchange um by the ADGM and FRSA. So it's particularly poignant to be here this week.

Well, congratulations and thank you again. um as you said 300 million users as as Binance Binance being a an already very wellestablished business in a wellestablished much hype asset class. Can you talk us through what multinationals that are well established in their own domestic market when they're looking at entering new markets, how should CEOs and CMOs think about maintaining the kind of brand equity of of their own business and and their brand, but whilst also aligning with, you know, local nuances and and local strategic priorities as well.

Yeah, it's a great question. you know, Binance started its journey eight years ago and has taken a very local market, you know, approach to how we built our business, very community first. Um, in fact, we kind of pride oursel on that positioning of being the world's largest local exchange in how we operate. But, you know, the playbook that was in the beginning is one that we still focus on and I think there's four core principles to that. Um firstly, you know, from a marketing and from a business perspective, it's critical that you really understand the reality and the relationship that those users in that local market have between finance and trust and understand their passions.

Um you know, what is it that drives them, their motivations, the the economic realities in which they're living, west versus east, you know, emerging versus established and and that's a big focus for us. you know the use cases in a market that we recently have really doubled down on Peru you know which we're seeing crypto being used for for payments versus you know a Turkish market which is one of the top three globally with the highest penetration where crypto was being used against as a hedge against inflation you know versus the reality of UAE you know where it's um you know being used for for wealth and and for payments and g runs the gamut for remittances um so you know for us it's really about understanding that local user, their local situation. I I think second of all, and I I can't stress this enough. Um it's understanding that as you enter in a market, you're working with the right stakeholders that are going to to be able to support your business. You need that partnership, you know, that that's critical and and for us, you know, um we take a very regulator first approach.

You know, Richard Tang earlier on was here and set up the ADGM and and over the last two years has worked diligently, you know, to to support that. But above all um you know I I think working not just with the regulators but also working with the educationmies the associations like understanding like how do you build what is a global brand business but with within that local ecosystem and I I think last of all you know we're a retail business we have a a strong institutional offering but you know we're a retail business so you have to focus on education and that education needs to take many forms you know whether it's simple education digital amas on Twitter, which is one that we are big fans of, you know, or weeks like this where we're sitting with a lot of the, you know, traditional institutions that are starting their journey into this space and and educating and offering our support in terms of how to enter into it in the right way. It's

it's interesting in in that explanation, you talk about a lot about kind of building understanding and local nuance and I just coming to you Dave on that. Obviously building that understanding requires intelligence and so you know with with digitalist was built 15 16 years ago as a as a technative techdriven firm. So from your vantage point how can companies actually um equip themselves the right tools to get a real cogent understanding of of what those market dynamics look like.

Well I was worried for a minute you were going to credit me with intelligence. Um, but

I'll credit digitalis, but I think Rachel touches on a few of the the the the key challenges from our perspective. I think the macro misconception is that a brand can transfer seamlessly into a new market. And we often see organizations getting the legal compliance right but underweaiting the the digital risks. You know, obviously local stakeholder groups are different and they're all influenced through online research channels. Um, values are obviously different.

Consider the western organization moving into new markets looking to um looking to port the values of privacy or freedom of speech or or transparency which can often be seen in a different market as foreign interference. Um, also social media sentiment doesn't travel well. If you look at, think Huawei's global expansion versus the geopolitical anxieties of the West and what the social media narrative played out as was espionage. You know, um, think about a French company investing in Africa, an American tech company moving into Asia. You know, the political challenges are are cumbersome.

So it's critical to understand local nuance and to do that you need deep full research. You need to understand and curate the online profile of your business as it's researched by third parties on the ground. And then in terms of due diligence and intelligence gathering there's an important note which is that in every country the kind of the key channels the key platforms through which to find that intelligence differ. So, it's key to have local experts in any new territory.

It's I was just going to say, um, jumping back to you, Rachel, it's it's interesting when when you were talking about, you know, we've all seen the kind of demonstrable efforts Binance has made in educating the market and and cultivating and building the ecosystem locally. Um, that to me boils down to delivery of incountry value and I think that's something that a lot of foreign entrance sometimes overlook or underestimate. So you can from your personal journey and Binance's journey, can can you give um a bit of color on what it really means to provide incountry value and just how critical that is to a successful entry into a new market?

Yeah. Um look, I I I think it's it's a it's a really good point. I I think what we do is and we talk a lot about the idea of being hyper local within the marketing team, within the product team, within the business. So everything from you know your first interaction with us you know whether that be on social media to what your experience when you enter into our platform you know we ensure that we are localizing that and meeting people where they are in their journey. Um, and I I think that's critical because if we look at not just digital asset financial literacy, if we look at financial literacy more broadly, you know, we're we're dealing with vastly, you know, diverse markets, you know, that we're operating in, you know, especially as you look at Africa, you look at Latin America, you look at South Asia.

Um, and and what we need to do is ensure that we're arming those users with the right information. Um, our founders had the ingenious idea, I wish it was mine, but I'll claim it now, five years ago, of of launching Binance Academy. Um, and Binance Academy, think about it like a masterclass platform if people are familiar with that where, you know, they understood that people had lots of questions and the world of digital assets was a big myth and where they were finding their information may not necessarily be correct or valid, you know. So this is um an online master class where there's over 10,000 modules where you can educate yourself on everything from you know what is Bitcoin or who is Satoshi as many people ask still um to more you know as you go deeper into that journey more fundamental you know going into fundamental trading strategies and the like and and just to give context we had 43 million people participate on that platform it's localized in 33 languages I think we're adding another 30 you know over this six month period. Um, and 43 million people, 400,000 people alone in Kenya use that platform over the last 24 months.

Um, and and the reason why the importance of meeting people where they are, it's like tailoring the content, tailoring the tools, tailoring the products to ensure you're showing up in a relevant way because that's how you're building meaningful trust. Um, we're also big believers in helping people understand how to enter into the place in a sec into the into crypto, excuse me. Um, and starting their digital asset journey in a safe and secure way. So, as they go onto our platform, you know, if we see someone entering into a a tool like futures that will be too complicated for them, you know, we have extra layers of protection that users have to complete questionnaires before we'll unlock that tool. So, you know, it it's educating users, empowering them with the right information, but also continuing to manage them while they're on that journey.

It's interesting you touched on building trust, and we'll get to that in a minute, but what you've shared, I guess, is a really great primer on proactively how to kind of build trust and credibility and buyin. Alongside the proactivity, I guess there's a need to preemptively also mitigate risk uh when entering new markets. And I think for a lot of institutions, especially in this sector, there may be unknown risks in new markets that that leadership might not be aware of through not having been in the region or specific market they're entering. So Dave, from from your perspective and from the work that Digitalis is doing in this space, how can organizations um equip themselves internally or with providers like yourselves to know the unknown risks they need to consider?

No, sure. Well, and I'll try and focus on the CMO role in that context, I suppose, because of course probably elsewhere in the organization, the GC or the CFO is worrying about due diligence on partners and and and and all kinds of things. Um whereas we we think the CMO has to focus as has to perform as a market intelligence hub, you know. Um and historic and real time social media strategic intelligence is fundamental to that. You know in terms of understanding the trending narratives, understanding misinformation that might be out there, understanding who are the influencers, where are the activists, um what is the local sentiment, you know, and the same sources provide for reputational due diligence on prospective partners as well.

And that's the way we understand risk to be able to mitigate it. And I think that intelligence to the CMO has to preede and inform all of the other the deliverables, partnering with regulators, partnering with uh with industry associations over compliance hopefully in advance of of of launch, localization of case studies, crisis comm's playbooks, you know, etc., etc., and and tracking social media on an ongoing basis allows you then to adapt messaging on the fly in market to react to all of those counter pressures.

Yeah. The first thing I do in the morning is before I even have coffee is check X, LinkedIn, Instagram to understand like what narratives are being socialized. You know, hopefully they're positive. you know, a large amount of time they can be negative, you know, and you have to be able to use that social media sentiment as a way to check the pulse of what how you need to adapt your strategies. I it used to be on a week on week or month on month or quarter on quarter.

We're now operating in an hour on hour, you know, in in our industry and I I think that's increasingly affecting the traditional world as well.

It's interesting you you obviously Rachel, you touched on building trust and Dave, you just spoke about kind of reputational due diligence. often we tend to talk about that at an organizational level, right? But obviously CEOs and and business leaders in especially around the fintech space and digital assets are are the custodians of those organizations. So I guess Dave staying with you, how how should organizations really assess and determine if a if a board or or business leader is market ready? I guess from my perspective, market readiness of an executive, a board, of anyone really is it's it's not about internal deliberations.

It's more about observable characteristics from the outside in, you know, and market readiness in that sense is if you think where where do our target stakeholders look into us, you know, before a meeting, before writing, journalists, competitors, customers, uh partners, they they all go online. And of course, that was traditionally on Google. Now they're using LLMs as well. Um, so boards and leaders pre-market entry beyond the brand need to think about how they each how we each look, you know, and and in order to do that, we need to we need to audit the digital footprint, you know, what is there out there about me that could cause a vulnerability in a new market. Um, once once we've audited that digital footprint, we should think about how is all that content out there about our CEO, how is it ordered in different geographies?

Because all very well to sit there in the US and think, well, it's all good. The Wall Street Journal profiles the first thing people see and my Wikipedia page is great, but that might not be the case in the UAE, in Asia, in other markets. So, so how do how do we work on that? you know, we'll we'll tend to think about these things with people like you, Rachel, six months before doing anything in the territory. And so curating the requisite profile of your key executives is fundamental because it's they as much as your brand who will come under scrutiny, under cursory research and and and what we do in advance will inform what people see.

I I think this is a really interesting point. There's many markets that we don't operate in as a business where you know we would love to in the medium to long term but the the journey starts now in terms of how you're showing up how you're providing education to those stakeholders that may have questions. In our case there's still a lot of misinformation you know about centralized exchanges about the broader ecosystem. So showing up and being the behind the-scenes um thought leader as well as you know supporting them with data supporting with insights supporting them with education on how they can take a pioneering or leading position and I I think here is the perfect example UAE of you know they started on that journey nearly five years ago or even beyond you know with some of the early holders here um and they've taken that time to work with the private sector to understand how they build and and the result is you know what we see today where you've got at Abu Dhabi Finance Week this merging of digital assets and traditional finance where I've I I travel a lot and I've never seen an event where you've got equal position of digital assets and and of the traditional finance space.

It's interesting you kind of preempted my next question. I just staying with you um in this space especially there's there's there's the desire for leaders to kind of um demonstrate innovation and rapid growth. the kind of old old school Silicon Valley move fast break things right but in the l through the lens of financial services obviously you know organizations have a fiduciary responsibility to do things right so from from perspective of Binance how do you manage that kind of defy innovation blue uh you know blue sky northstar messaging with kind of you know traditional trady responsible innovation

look I I think we need to remember it took a hundred years to build the financial systems as we know it and and in just over a decade you know, we we've seen similar systems being bought in digital assets. And I I do think the traditional industry is now looking to to companies like Binance and our broader ecosystem um as the disruptors that they're learning from how we create a modern financial system that caters for the way money needs to move in today's society, which needs to needs to be faster. For for me, I look at it fundamentally through one very simple principle. um you know our users, we need to keep our users safe. We're very privileged to be in the position of being the largest.

We're trusted and and we are trusted because of what has been built. It's always like how are we protecting our users? So whether that be through what I shared earlier on around education or whether that be through you know how we mitigate risk you know in the user journey through training people on how to protect themselves with 2FA authentication or risk protocols you know that's really really critical um in order to ensure that we continue to build uh a system um alongside you know we're a companion now and I think this week has been um a true manifestation of that where we're seeing you know the bridge between web 2 and web 3 is real and together it's not a conflict together we're going to be able to build a financial system that caters for um what is the modern user and what are the modern capital markets that we're facing

absolutely and I we've got about 30 seconds left so just to wrap up final question for each of you bringing it closer to home we have spoke we'll have all spoken to a number of aspiring companies looking to enter this this thriving ecosystem we have in the UAE um why the UAE for new market entrance Dave and then Rachel Well, I've recently moved to the UAE and I'm moving increasing amounts of digitalized operation here. So, I speak from a very personal perspective when I say there's so much energy in the UAE right now and energy translated to business. Um I moved to New York in 2008 directly after Lehman Brothers and there was I know a negative time for traditional industry but what was happening over there was this amazing surge of innovation um entrepreneurialism and optimism in that direct aftermath and I think you know I moved here four years ago um and I haven't looked back. I I think the energy you feel in this ecosystem, the welcome, the curiosity, the creativity um and really when and I'm very biased as I'm based here, but you know, we're truly seeing the future of finance being built in real time.

And for me, that's extraordinary. And you know, I you know, I I really commend the leaders of of the UAE and Abu Dhabi on on how they are doing that and welcoming and the innovators and the traditional space in to work to together alongside together.

Couldn't couldn't agree more. feel the same and and echo both your sentiments. Um, we are at time everybody. Thank you very much for taking time to join us today. Dave, Rachel, thank you.

And thank you again to the ADGM. Thanks a lot.