Visible Banking: Visible Banking: Interview with Pol Navarro, Head of Channels and Innovation at Banco Sabadell

It was my fourth EFMA event.
John Kirkbright, invited me to speak at "Social Media Revolution and Impact on Financial Services", the conference he organized for the EFMA in Paris on 19th March 2009.

The event had speaker panels and interactive sessions to facilitate exchanges of information and ideas between a strictly limited audience of senior European banking executives from over 10 countries.

Banco Sabadell and Social Media
Pol Navarro, Head of Channels and Innovation at Banco Sabadell, delivered a presentation entitled 'How the social media is impacting marketing communication and the next marketing wave'.

Pol and I share a similar passion for social media. We are both active users of social media sites like facebook, linkedin or twitter.
If you are passionate about innovation, I highly recommend you to follow Pol on Twitter.

During his presentation, Pol insisted on the importance of being transparent, honest, and managing your community.

'Loyalty = Economy of emotion'
Pol also introduced the audience to a few of Banco Sabadell's social media initiatives such as their mashup with google calendar, their page on facebook, their YouTube channel and their Twitter feed.

They also have a link to their rss feed on their homepage. Unfortunately the Banco Sabadell Labs, their JV with IBM to tap social media, has gone quiet since the announcement back in June 2007.

A few comments:
* Overall, Banco Sabadell is one of the most experimental banks in Europe which reinforces the importance of having a Director or an Executive who is happy to champion social media: Wells Fargo has Tim Collins, Ed Terpening and its CMO, SEB has Lars Milleberg, Raboplus has Greg McAweeney...
* I love the power of blogging and social media: my coverage of the EFMA event on social media appears on the first page on Google with the key words 'Banco Sabadell Social Media'
* On Twitter, BancoSabadell is only following two of their employees (@Pol and @Xavier, both from the Innovation team). I would be delighted for @VisibleBanking to join this exclusive club too! ;)

Interview with Pol (Paris, 19-Mar-09)
I invite you to watch my interview with Pol.