My impact
I had the pleasure of working with Emma Hardiman and can say she is an outstanding marketing leader who combines commercial acumen with creativity to deliver real results. I had the opportunity to support and participate in several client-focused campaigns, marketing events that Emma and her team curated. Each one was flawlessly executed, insightful, and impactful, always keeping the client at the heart of the experience.
We collaborated with others on shaping a more female-focused approach for our wealth management offering, where Emma’s passion for inclusivity and creating opportunities really shone through.
I’d highly recommend Emma to any organisation looking for a marketing leader who can deliver growth, lead transformation, and inspire those around her.
Tsitsi Mutiti, Investment Manager, Charles Stanley
About me
I’m Emma Hardiman, a fractional CMO working with wealth management and financial services firms.
My path into marketing was unconventional. I qualified as an accountant, worked in finance roles, then made the deliberate transition into marketing because I could see the strategic opportunity - most marketing teams lacked commercial fluency, and most commercial teams did not understand how to build sustainable competitive advantage through brand and positioning.
That combination has defined my career. I am equally comfortable in the boardroom discussing commercial strategy as I am developing creative campaigns. I understand the numbers behind the narrative.
I have spent more than twenty years working inside leading financial services organisations, including Charles Stanley, Coutts, RBS, BNY Mellon and Aviva Investors.
Those roles have taken me from hands-on marketing delivery to director-level leadership, responsible for strategy, teams, budgets and commercial outcomes.
That experience means I understand the pressures leadership teams face, the constraints firms operate within, and the importance of making decisions that stand up to scrutiny.
When I work with a firm, I am not learning the sector.
I am applying experience built over two decades inside it.
Career Highlights
Strategic Marketing Leadership
At Director of Marketing & Communications, I led a team of 30 with a multimillion-pound budget. I built the marketing function's strategic capability, led brand alignment work following multiple acquisitions, developed client segmentation frameworks, and established measurement systems that connected marketing activity to commercial outcomes
Commercial Analytics
Created a Commercial Analytics function from scratch, developing the data infrastructure and analytical capabilities to measure effectiveness of strategic initiatives and inform strategic decisions. This included client segmentation frameworks, lifetime value modelling, attribution analysis and campaign performance measurement. Established evidence-based data insight as a core capability, enabling the business to make informed investment decisions about investment, performance, growth, channel mix, segment prioritisation and campaign strategy.
Strategy Development
As Strategic Development Director, I rewrote the distribution strategy and worked with corporate brokers on M&A activity. This role bridged commercial strategy and marketing execution, ensuring our growth plans were grounded in market reality and competitive positioning.
Strategic Finance
Qualified as an accountant and worked in finance roles before transitioning into marketing. This foundation gives me commercial fluency that most marketers lack - I understand P&L dynamics, can build financial models, and speak boardroom language. I bring this financial rigour to every marketing decision, translating strategy into outcomes that CFOs and CEOs actually care about.
Why Fractional
I set up my consultancy because I saw a gap in the market. Many wealth management firms need strategic marketing leadership but cannot justify a full-time CMO hire. They need someone who can parachute in, diagnose what is needed, build the strategy, and either execute it or put the right team in place to deliver.
The fractional model gives firms access to senior-level expertise exactly when they need it, without the overhead of a permanent executive hire.
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Let's Work Together
Whether you are looking for strategic marketing leadership, help with positioning and differentiation, or building the commercial analytics that connect marketing to business outcomes, I would welcome a conversation about how I might help.
