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Simon Blissett

Head of FS Solutions & Innovation EMEAR

Financial Services Solutions & Innovation EMEAR

Simon has nearly 30 years experience in financial services across a range of organisations and functions. He is a multi-channel distribution and strategy expert with a strong record of commercial success in financial services and an outstanding track record of change programme leadership.

His previous roles include:

• Head of Distribution & Marketing for Bank of Ireland UK - leading the digital agenda for the UK Bank and its partnership with the Post Office.

• Programme Director for Association of British Credit Unions - leading a government funded project to set up a central services business for credit unions including IT strategy, marketing strategy, HR, organisational design etc.

• Head of Channel Development for Nationwide Building Society - leading the strategy and implementation for all channel development including contact centre, digital, ATMs, face to face and branch design.

His experience includes expertise in transforming customer experience and leveraging technology to deliver increased growth and profitability across distribution channels.

Articles

August 9, 2017

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Encrypted Traffic Analytics – Why Should You Care?

I was recently introduced to Dave McGrew – Cisco’s version of Yoda! This unassuming, humble engineer looks like a geography teacher and is the kind of guy who creates encryption algorithms in his spare time as a hobby – just like we might do crosswords (OK, I don’t do crosswords but you get my poin…

July 18, 2017

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Digital Transformation: Analysing Analytics

I don’t know about you, but everyone seems to be talking analytics – it is another great digital transformation buzzword. Most of the time in financial services, analytics means customer analytics – how we can combine structured data within the bank with the world of big data to give us amazingly ne…

June 22, 2017

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Cisco DNA for Financial Services: The Answer is in the Network

How can financial services companies meet the competing pressures to speed up digitization, comply with every increasing regulation and reduce costs? The answer is in the network – the digital ready, self-learning, self-healing and secure network. Running a bank or insurance company is becoming incr…

May 26, 2016

FINANCIAL SERVICES

FinTech & The Digital Eco-System

According to our latest economic analysis, there’s $405 billion in Digital Value at Stake in Retail banking from 2015 to 2017. In 2015, financial services institutions captured only 29% of the potential Value at Stake. There’s a lot on the table and disruptive new market entrants like FinTech startu…

March 10, 2016

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Virtualised Expertise – A True Win/Win

How many times have you gone into your local branch to see someone about a mortgage, or a pension, or a current account and no one is available to see you right away? It happens more often that you think. And the bank often doesn’t know how much business it is losing as these initial requests are qu…

February 25, 2016

FINANCIAL SERVICES

My first Cisco Live…and it was in Berlin!

I am a new Cisco hire – Head of Financial Services Solutions & Innovation EMEAR and I just came back from Cisco Live Berlin. This is my first time at the event, having spent 30 years in banking. My first impression? Firstly, WOW! I have been a Cisco customer in previous banking roles and I thoug…