What does it take to be a high-performing Chief Commercial Officer?

It was great to sit down with Ion Fratiloiu a few weeks ago to discuss how fintech startups can scale their GTM strategy and common mistakes to avoid. After starting his career in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, he moved into fintech and has held several commercial leadership positions within the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and lending markets. Most recently he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Yobota and Channel, where he was responsible for launching a new SMB lending proposition from scratch, secured funding and helped build a high-performing commercial team. He is currently open to new opportunities so please free to reach out to him directly if you would like to discuss your commercial strategy or are seeking a high-impact interim or permanent leader for your team.

What initially motivated you to move from investment banking into fintech? What would you advise to others looking to do the same?

I am a curious individual and enjoy learning new things that may seem challenging. I felt I reached a point in my banking days that there were other interesting things out there, perhaps more innovative and more fast-paced where you can use your creativity and have an immediate impact. Since the transition into fintech, I have enjoyed my journey thus far and I would warmly recommend it to others too. It’s great to see that what you do turns into reality pretty quick, and who wouldn’t enjoy food, snacks, drinks and arcade games in the office?

Why do you think traditional financial services companies struggle to launch new fintech propositions?

There are couple reasons here. First one is their old technology stacks which inhibits innovation, but second to that is the desire to change their processes and ways of doing things. Quite often when speaking with Tier 1 Banks the second reason comes the first very quickly as they have a mentality of ‘why fix it if it’s not broken?’ and that gives a huge opportunity to the digital savvy companies to innovate and steal their market share. 

What are the biggest Go-to-Market mistakes you see fintech founders make in the early days? 

Out-pricing themselves from a very competitive market as well as looking too much at their competitors. They often forget what their vision is and very quickly become a copy cat trying to hunt whales in a small boat. Another common mistake is that CTOs think strongly they are sales people and often lose deals thinking the product/service wasn’t a match, when in true reality they weren’t good at selling to the right audience.

You’ve built and scaled high-performing commercial teams in the past. What ’non-negotiable’ skills and qualities do you look for when hiring and how do you foster a strong culture of collaboration and innovation?

Integrity and honesty. I strongly believe in these two qualities when looking for talent. Of course their skillset as well, but if those qualities lack, it is very difficult to form a strong culture where your team believes in your vision as a leader and in the company itself. A leader should make time for even the most junior person in the team and always have everyone’s back, on merit of course. 

What do you see as the biggest opportunity in fintech that you think is currently being overlooked?

The adoption of AI technologies. Even though this is slowly adopted by organisations in servicing their customers, more can be done here. Imagine a tech company building its software with the help of AI, or a bank creating a new technology architecture driven by AI where they don’t have to pay large consulting firms and system integrators for projects that last years. It will come for sure but for now it’s a transition like we see cars moving from fuel to electric.