Celebrating female leadership in FX: Laoura Salveta (FXPRIMUS)

Ultra-modern, highly technologically advanced, and at the cutting edge of the world of financial services and technology, the FX industry heralds executives who are ambitious, enthusiastic and upwardly mobile.

In its relative infancy compared to the hierarchical, wood-paneled institutions of traditional banking, FX represents all that is urbane and fast moving, hence the lack of a metaphorical ‘glass ceiling’. With this dynamism comes the rise to success of several ladies whose prominence in senior management positions across the entire FX industry, from social trading, to interactive educational systems, to signal provision, platform engineering, events, and brokerage.

FinanceFeeds spoke to Laoura Salveta, Head of Marketing at FXPRIMUS, the Cyprus-based retail FX brokerage that partnered with English Football Club Manchester City F.C. in early 2015, having recently announced a new marketing campaign called ‘Meet Your Heroes’.

 

How did you get into the industry and where did it all start?

I started my exciting Marketing career agency-side, working with brands under the Diageo umbrella, such as Guinness and Smirnoff, as well as other like Vodafone, Nestle, Adidas and many more. So you can imagine the intensity and fun it was. So, back then – I swore that I would never work in Pharmaceuticals and Finance (Famous last words!) I went on to work in-house in a Global Pharma company whereby I learnt all the in’s and outs of Marketing in-line with strict compliance and regulations, which eventually paid off for the career that awaited me in the world of Forex. This experience gave me a tremendous advantage, not only securing an FX job, but also really understanding best practice of how to sell in an industry that has been tarnished in the past for having its unregulated brokers.

Have you faced any challenges and how did you overcome them? Any interesting anecdotes from your own background and how this helped you succeed? 

If I’m being really honest, I didn’t really understand what I was applying for when I first heard about Forex, so I guess learning about all aspect of the FX industry was the biggest challenge, however I knew that the role of Global Marketing Campaign Coordinator never suited anyone as much as it clearly suited me!

Any interesting anecdotes from your own background and how this helped you succeed? 

I believe FX Marketers really need to understand all intricacies of how each individual departments works, in order to really find differentiating factors in an industry whereby most brokers are essentially selling the same business. In overcoming this learning curve, I have celebrated some real highlights in my career by running some of the biggest global marketing campaigns ever to be launched in the industry, such as: ‘easy-forex Trade you way to $1 million’; ‘easy-forex World Trade Series’; ‘Marshall Gittler (‘The guy with the wooden bow-tie’) joins FXPRIMUS’; our FXPRIMUS official Forex Partnership with Manchester City FC and our interactive experiential football booth at FX events worldwide, and most recently; the ‘FXPRIMUS Meet Your MCFC Heores’ campaign! As well as creating global brand guidelines for brokers (along with supplementary localized guidelines, eg. China focused).

Any views on the role of women within the financial services? 

I believe that Marketing ‘Forex’ is not only about your long-term strategy, budgets, sponsorships and planned activities – in order to really succeed, you need to be 100% responsive to what’s happening in the markets on a daily basis and releasing campaigns/promotions in an instance of a key indicator. Generally women are great coordinators and fantastic for their multi-tasking abilities – so we can achieve great things in this industry J !!!

This is a very male dominated industry, so for women who aspire for achievement, there is a huge opportunity for them to stand-out, get noticed faster and receive the recognition they deserve.

Any additional thoughts or information that you would like to share?

This is an industry that has had its successes and its failures, for those who never want to stop learning and adapting their business to what’s trending – whether they be male or female, whether they be Risk Managers or Marketing Manager – they are the ones who will take that bull by its horns and be considered the industry leaders.

Laoura Salveta started in 2002 at Lites Group, Redstar brand Activation, CCP, Watermarque, Carlsberg Importers & Distributors, moving up to Marketing Executive at Redstar Brand Activation in 2005. One year later, a new change of venue: Account Executive at Advantage ICO. After a year as business development & marketing coordinator at Sciele Pharma Ireland, Laoura became owner of her business, Eventability, specialized in Event Management, Marketing Management, Corporate Management and DMC & Incentive Management, from November 2008 to December 2011.

It was then and there that a true jump toward the FX industry happened. By the end of 2011, Easy Forex trusted her to manage the global Marketing Communications. Her skills became common knowledge within the industry and MPF Global Markets hired her as Global Marketing Manager in 2014. It was in April 2015 that Ms. Salveta became Head of Marketing at FXPRIMUS.