Ten years ago, fintech marketers did a bit of everything. Then the tools became more technical, and teams hired specialists for SEO, paid, and CRM.
Now AI gives those specialists more independence. Someone working on paid campaigns needs less help producing content or building workflows. But separate tools, processes, and messaging make coordinating a team harder.
I spoke with Joel Gaudeul, VP Marketing at Swan, about how hiring priorities should change. He leads around ten people across growth, brand, content, product marketing, and field marketing. His previous roles include CMO, CRO, COO, and VP of RevOps.
Our conversation gave me a useful way to assess a marketing hire: look at the customer knowledge and support your team needs before adding another channel specialist.
Start with product marketing to get your messaging right
Joel would hire a product marketer first.
A good product marketer interviews customers and prospects, understands their priorities, and develops messaging for each audience. Those answers shape outreach, content, and sales conversations.
For a B2B fintech with several products and buyer personas, this work needs attention early. Hiring someone to run campaigns before you understand your buyers risks spending money on messages they don’t care about.
AI also helps a product marketer produce initial assets and run campaigns, reducing the need for several execution hires straight away.
The part I’d pay attention to is capacity. Swan has two product marketers, and Joel still considers the team too small for the business.
He describes a role covering company positioning, individual features, industry segments, and sales enablement. Expecting one person to handle everything means choosing which responsibilities receive less attention.
Before writing the job description, separate your strategic work from ongoing sales support. Be explicit about which takes priority.
Give someone ownership of AI across the team
Joel’s next priority would be someone with advanced AI skills who helps colleagues implement their ideas.
This person supports adoption, automation, and shared ways of working. They might sit within marketing or elsewhere in the company.
I liked his concern about documentation. People work quickly with AI, produce their own materials, and build separate processes. Soon, nobody knows which information is current.
Feeding conflicting product details into an AI workflow creates unreliable results. Agree on the approved messaging, maintain shared product information, and give someone responsibility for helping colleagues use both.
At Swan, Joel sees value in better account research for sales and AI reviews of content against brand and compliance criteria. He puts less emphasis on producing more assets. The business needs informed sales conversations more than a higher publishing volume.
Look for clear thinking when hiring
Joel lets candidates use AI in interview exercises. He asks them to show their prompts and explain their process.
I’d use this approach because the finished presentation only reveals part of someone’s ability. Walking through the work shows how they make decisions.
Ask candidates where they sourced their information, how they checked accuracy, and what they changed after reviewing the output. Get them to explain how they would produce consistent results next time.
Joel also looks for different working styles. A creative colleague contributes something different from someone who excels at organizing work or supporting teammates. Your next hire should strengthen how the group works together.
Prioritize roles around your buying journey
Dedicated SEO and paid specialists sit lower on Joel’s hiring list. Swan focuses on large accounts, with events, dinners, and customer relationships playing an important role.
During our conversation, I pointed out the difference for businesses targeting smaller companies. If Google Ads already brings in customers, a paid specialist deserves consideration. Your acquisition results should inform the decision.
Social media deserves a closer look too. Joel questions assigning the function to an intern when the responsibilities include ghostwriting for the CEO. Earning a senior leader’s trust and developing their public voice require experience.
His longer-term hiring test is useful: will the business still need this role in three years?
For your own team, review upcoming launches, target markets, and sales needs. Use those commitments to explain the hire, including the work your existing team lacks time to deliver.
Key takeaways
- Define the scope before hiring. Positioning, feature launches, and sales enablement need realistic time allocations.
- Assess AI skills through the candidate’s working process, including checks on accuracy and consistency.
- Use customer acquisition results and upcoming business priorities to decide where specialist headcount belongs.
Show notes
Joel Gaudeul is the VP of Marketing at Swan, an embedded banking platform helping software companies offer bank accounts, cards, and payments within their products. He leads a marketing team of around ten people and has previously held CMO, CRO, COO, and RevOps leadership roles.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why product marketing would be Joel’s first hire, and where one person’s capacity falls short
- How Swan structures its team across growth, brand, content, product marketing, and field marketing
- Why social media and executive ghostwriting deserve experienced marketers
- Who should own AI adoption and help teams coordinate their tools and workflows
- How Swan uses AI for account research and content review
- Where Joel draws the line between AI support and human writing
- When dedicated SEO and paid specialists belong on your hiring list
- How to assess candidates’ AI skills through their prompts and working process
- Why two-week sprints help marketing teams protect time for longer projects
- How country or segment pods bring marketing closer to sales and revenue
Episode timestamps
02:50: Marketing Versus Sales Culture
05:53: Swan Marketing Org Chart
07:54: Underrated Roles PMM Social
09:47: First Hires AI Shift
13:22: Making Case For PMM
15:34: Hiring An AI Owner
20:08: AI Content Review Agents
24:22: Rethinking SEO and Paid
26:29: Channel Fit and Priorities
31:03: Marketing in Two-Week Sprints
37:12: AI Pressure and Team Structure
Show links
- Swan on LinkedIn
- Joel Gaudeul on LinkedIn
- Araminta Robertson on LinkedIn
- Mint Studios on LinkedIn
- Mint Studios Website
- Mint Studios Newsletter
About Araminta Robertson
Araminta is the Founder and Managing Director at Mint Studios, a content marketing agency that helps financial services and fintech companies acquire customers and position themselves as experts with content marketing.
