Marley Spoon marketing chief joins Wisr board

Marley Spoon chief marketing and growth officer, Kate Whitney, has joined the ever-growing ranks of marketing leaders taking on board roles and become a non-executive director at Wisr.

Wisr is an ASX-listed company focused on non-bank lending. The next-gen financial services business is looking to accelerate its growth ambitions and secure $1 billion on its loan book.

Whitney’s appointment to the board comes two months after the company brought on former Deutsche Bank UK director, Cathryn Lyall, as a non-executive director. She brings Wisr’s total board female representation to 40 per cent. Whitney officially takes up the board post on 1 April 2022.

Whitney has spent the last two-and-a-half years leading marketing and growth at Marley Spoon, helping the group double revenue in 2020 and achieve more than 25 per cent customer and company growth in 2021. Her work earned Whitney a place on the CMO50 of Australia’s most innovative and effective marketing leaders in 2021.

Credit: Marley Spoon

In a statement, Wisr highlighted Whitney’s experience in Australian and international consumer marketing, growth acceleration, product expansion and customer acquisition as valuable insights for the business to tap into.

Prior to Marley Spoon, Whitney was responsible for Pernod Ricard’s global digital transformation program in Australia and based out of the company’s New York headquarters. She spent a total of two-and-a-half years as director of digital. Before this, Whitney was GM marketing at David Jones locally, and has also held brand and retail marketing roles with Foxtel.

“The company’s impressive growth, data-driven approach and behaviour-driven culture that has been delivered by chief executive officer, Anthony Nantes, and the Wisr executive leadership team is best in class,” Whitney commented. “I’m looking forward to supporting the next stage of Wisr’s journey to accelerate our revenue, the path to profitability, customer acquisition and operating leverage into H2 and beyond.”

Wisr chairman, John Nantes, pointed to Whitney’s depth in brand and marketing experience, approach to leadership and culture, and global business acumen across consumer products as invaluable to accelerating the neobank’s path to profitability.

“Combined with the Company’s unbroken track record of 22 consecutive quarters of new loan growth, strong balance sheet, and well-capitalised position, Wisr has never been in a better position to support our growth ambitions in 2022,” he said.

Nantes noted UK-based Catalyst research that showed the positive impact of female board membership on a company’s growth and profitability.

“Kate and Cathryn’s appointments are an exciting opportunity for the business, our stakeholders and customers. Both are incredibly qualified with diverse experience and have come into the talent pool as first-time ASX-board appointments,” he continued. “Wisr is very proud to support greater gender diversity while also increasing the level of female talent at the Board level in Australia.” 

Wisr kicked off a rebrand program last July around the tagline, ‘For your smart part’ as part of efforts to emphasise its proposition of helping Australians improve their finances.

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