Buxton, England, United Kingdom
My name is Mike Burton and I’m an accomplished product change and marketing professional with a sound background in financial services. I am passionate about making it as easy for customers as possible to purchase or use services. I believe that this is ultimately the key to long term commercial success. A great business will know who its core customers are, know what they want and how they wish to buy it. This needs a strong customer-focused strategy to succeed, built around a sound understanding of customer needs and expectations. It sounds simple, but is so often forgotten. Wherever I have worked, this principle has enabled me to project manage and deliver enhancements to the business to improve the customer journey and enable increased business generation. This has included: - Marketing developments to drive customer consideration and conversion - Product development and proposition development to deliver and exceed customer expectations - Business development initiatives to drive increased YOY income growth - Improved distribution channel capability to reduce costs and increase engagement and retention Feel free to connect if you want to keep me updated with industry practice, have a chat, or just want to link!
Further adapting to business change, I became a planning manager on a project to increase competition in the business banking market. (A development linked to Future Williams and Glynn, which was no longer about creating a bank, but about reducing our market share in the SME space as directed by the European Commission / agreed by HMT). I was part of a small team to help shape and build an effective plan to launch this to customers, and deliver a programme of marketing to these customers to encourage them to act. I gained further experience of agile project management, risk management, product launch, and developed planning skills which saw no delivery milestone missed.
I obtained a secondment into a change role, adapting to business need. I ensured successful delivery of change into the business, and my portfolio of change covered Commercial Banking, Business Banking and Personal Banking across multiple product areas. I was instrumental in helping the business maintain change control through various transition periods as the Divestment strategy changed. This career move broadened my project management / change management / portfolio management experience, and I project managed change in to FW&G, influencing and challenging stakeholders to ensure business readiness. I also gained great exposure to the digital development strategy, as well as commercial banking, and my input is helping steer the next stage of FW&G.
I joined the Future Williams and Glyn (FW&G) team in RBS as Senior Product Manager for Deposits / Savings, to build on and broaden my experience in setting up a new bank. My focus was on the Retail / Personal Savings range. A key area was BAU balance sheet management and product change readiness. I drove success and efficient balance growth in challenging climate, through the engagement with the frontline colleagues, helping to increase confidence in the products. This included workshops on the products, customer journey pinch-points, improvement, leading to higher levels of colleague engagement with savings. Furthermore, my team was fundamental in establishing MI reporting to increase understanding of the product performance. Another part of the role was setting up the function to become a successful stand-up area. I worked closely with the Rainbow Programme to divest the W&G part of RBS. I managed change into the FW&G savings range, ensuring awareness and readiness activity in the business. I also shaped the savings strategy for input to the Banking Licence Application, providing a view of the savings progression in the business over a 5-7 year period.
I was recruited internally for a new proposition role and worked in a small team to develop the target savings and investment proposition for The Bank. While in the role, I helped the business move to a single product range across the Britannia and Co-op Bank brands, improved channel capability, managed product changes and withdrawals and delivered one single website for savings products. In a difficult period for the company, I still managed to deliver numerous proposition improvements which had a positive impact on income and on the customer journey. While in the position, I was seconded to Project Verde (the purchase of 600 Lloyd’s branches by The Co-operative Bank). My role in this was a savings product SME, where I helped shape the business case and the proposed integration and system migration journey, seeking to minimise impact on customers and the business.
I joined Britannia Building Society prior to the merger with The Co-operative Bank, working in a small team managing the 3rd party regulated advice business for our customers. This was a successful business unit when I joined, but change was needed to take it to the next level. Despite an economically challenging environment, I helped the business produce a YOY increase in income over the period 2008-2010 through a combination of business development, improved marketing support, better understanding of customers, improved staff engagement, product management, and relationship management. Following the merger, I was heavily involved in the project to launch this service into The Co-operative Bank, which despite its complexity, was delivered on time in a challenging environment.