Stephen Slattery is SVP Global Sales for Informa Festivals' FinTech verticals — the team behind Money20/20, Finovate and FinTech Futures. He brings international sales leadership experience across the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and 29 years in selling. Host Sarah first worked with Stephen and his team through COVID, "when building relationships in person still meant hoping that someone remembered to come off mute." What we cover How you get to CRO: 29 years of practice, and no shortcut. There's no book to read — it's the hard graft of experience and expertise you can only accrue by doing it. Why growth: a father in banking gave him deep sector expertise before he understood what a company function even was, and sales turned out to be the skill set that unlocked access to any industry Y2K at Reuters as his first crisis — working through midnight, and getting hooked on guiding other companies through moments that matter Understanding your customer without being your customer: you don't have to be the banker or the engineer, but you do have to understand their world well enough to fuel what they do Sizing growth potential: who's making money, who's in a moment of transition, and why regulation creates opportunity — open banking in Europe, decentralised finance in payments Ambition versus achievability: the ambition is valid if the plan behind it is solid. So stop polishing the goal and refine the plan. His test — could I sell this plan to the room, or do I get the eye rolls? The three things he looks for in first-line salespeople: genuine interest in the sector, coachability, and product expertise at the value level rather than the brochure level Two interview questions that expose all three — what have you read about payments or fintech recently, and what was the last learning you undertook since graduating. The number of blank faces is telling. Why sales doesn't have a qualification, and why that's no excuse. Would you hire a lawyer who hadn't trained recently? AI and the shape of the profession: the transactional end of selling is gaining enormous efficiency, so the expert part moves to human interaction, knowledge and the experience created for the customer Where a CRO actually spends time — finance, marketing, operations, content — and why mutual understanding has to run both ways. Siloing is a heavy risk, and the surprise of discovering his own operations team had never seen how the sales function was structured. Collaboration as a retention issue: harmony affects whether people stay Metrics: all of them matter, but not individually. The job is reading across the data sets to spot the next move — plus the hours spent explaining what weighted pipeline actually means. Reporting transparency, and why a salesperson needs to see how their inputs turn into a red, amber or green next to their name in a room they're not in Stephen's three pieces of advice for CROs and sales leaders Be an expert in your customers. How they make money, how they measure success, and — the detail he singles out — who is accountable for the ROI, not just what the ROI is. And be visible. Sales leaders behind a spreadsheet are long gone. Be an expert in tactics, not just strategy. Does the team know what to do today? What are the three ways we could tackle this? Inactivity is the opposite of growth. Invest in your people and give them belief. If they're good enough to be hired, they're good enough to be here. And as a leader — you have to earn the right to give hell.
