Nadia Ivanova is a familiar name to the broader public in Cyprus. Having spent her formative years on the island during the 90s, her longstanding presence, coupled with her active involvement beyond the narrow confines of her profession, has made her an integral part of the country's business community. For the past five years, Nadia has been working at Unlimit, a fintech innovator known for its 'borderless payments' mantra. Observing her trajectory at the company, which boasts offices in various countries including Cyprus, one sees a professional who has navigated diverse yet distinct roles – from event management to PR, to marketing, and now as the Chief Communications Officer, a position she recently assumed. Therefore, it's no surprise that her advice to young professionals is 'not to be afraid of experimenting and trying different approaches,' a sentiment she emphasizes in the following interview.

Over the last five months, Nadia, along with Evgeny Kozlov, has played a pivotal role in TechIsland's MarComms Community, a professional group aimed at strengthening the marketing and communications sector amidst Cyprus' rapidly evolving tech industry. In light of the recent MarComms Community event, Nadia shares in the upcoming interview the vision behind the establishment of the community and its objectives. Finally, living her daily life in Cyprus both as a citizen and a professional, she comments on what could be improved in the country's effort to achieve its goal of becoming a true 'tech island.'

In my communications strategy I focus on a number of key goals. First of all, I want to make sure that our brand awareness continues to grow in all of our regions of presence. Working for a global company with 16 offices all over the world means you have to simultaneously work towards building a media presence in very different environments and markets, and take into consideration the unique specifics of the region’s media landscape. My second goal, is to make sure that our products our positioned in the right way. Again, this is a complex task, as we offer a huge variety of financial solutions, starting from payment processing to banking as a service, that each have their own target regions and target audience.

I think my approach was greatly influenced by my work in media and the fact that I have built my career by working in different marketing roles. I started off in internal communications, then went on to public relations and working in an international channel’s press office, moved to digital marketing and content creation, and then to event management. This allowed me to look at tasks and projects from all aspects of marketing and has aided my strategic approach a lot.

There are many things that I am proud off in my career journey, but I would say that working at Unlimit is definitely one of the main ones. When in 2021 I was appointed CMO, I had to build everything from scratch. I started with a team of 3 people, barely any media presence or social media presence. Today, as I take on the position of CCO, we have a team of 20 people, a strong presence in media worldwide, we have grown 14 times on LinkedIn our main social media channel, accumulating a followership of 112K + active followers, showing x2.5 more follower acquisition than our key competitors and surpassing them in organic engagement for two consecutive years, 2022 and 2023, we have our own interview series on YouTube, “Female Voices” and “Journey to Success”, and our visual game is unbeatable and fully produced in-house by a fantastic design team.

My main advice would be to try yourself in different roles. In order to build successful strategies and lead a team of other marketing professionals you need to understand what good looks like and how it can be achieved. Learn your craft, not just the theory, but the practical side, so that if needed you can do things by hand. This will allow you to talk to your team in “their language” and create strategies that consider every channel of marketing. I would also advise to take risks. Don’t be scared to experiment and try different approaches. Fortune favours the bold, after all.

I think one of the main challenges marketeers of tech and fintech companies face today is the over saturation of the market. The competition is high and it is getting harder and harder to stand out from the crowd, meaning that we have to keep on pushing our creativity to its limits. You are also often working with a very diverse audience, so a one-size-fits all approach to marketing doesn’t cut it, requiring you to conduct deep analysis on each audience segment, and go through a series of “create, test, optimize, repeat”.

With the evolution of various new technologies, like AI for example, we have received new tools to dig deeper with and measure things better. The more analytics we can gather the better our strategies and approaches will be, which will result in better tailored content for our audiences. Content that appeals to them and fits their needs. And better content and communication, means higher engagement. 

Well first of all it would be wrong to credit the initiative to just myself. The TechIsland MarComms Community is a result of a collective effort by the amazing TechIsland team, myself and Evgeny Kozlov, Regional Marketing Manager at Aleph. But we all did share the same vision. We wanted to create a place where local marketing professional and marketing professionals from global companies in Cyprus could come together and share knowledge, best practices etc. We wanted them to discover each other, like-minded individuals, who face the same challenges each day, and be able to talk about it and find solutions together. As Cyprus continues to evolve as Europe’s leading technological hub, our goal is to make sure that our community will become the go-to place for everything related to marketing on the island and beyond, for all marketing professionals working in the tech and fintech sectors in Cyprus.

Oh there were many. I knew that there was a demand for marketing focused meet-ups but I didn’t expect a full house turnout straight away. It was an amazing feeling to see local and international professionals sitting together and networking. So my main impression was confirmation that we are doing the right thing by organizing all of this.

In regards to the discussion, one of the standout moments for me was when we got to learn about CARO, the Cyprus Advertising Regulation Organization. I was surprised to learn, that if someone comments something on your company’s twitter, for example, that is misleading in regards to your brand, and you do not correct them you would face a regulatory complaint. Or that even if you advertise abroad, but are based in Cyprus, CARO would be the one to deal with any complaints in regards to your advertising. I think another standout moment was to understand just how little data we as local marketeers currently have when it comes to our audience – a problem, that we definitely need to start thinking about and working towards eliminating. Finally, I loved hearing about Innovation/Leo Burnett work that focused on celebrating local talent and artists.

I think that there are still many things that need to be worked on. From life-related things like upgrading our public transport and city infrastructure, to minimize the increased traffic on the roads, and making sure there are enough spots for children in schools, to more high-level things like government supported initiatives for startups and entrepreneurs, educational programmes in universities focused on IT and Tech, and of course a strong collaboration between everyone in this industry in Cyprus to make our joint dream a reality. All of the above is exactly what TechIsland is focusing on and one of the reasons why I am so proud to be part of their efforts.  And I am certain that we will manage to achieve everything we have set out to do for the benefit of our home, Cyprus.

What: Unlimit, TechIsland MarComms Community

More Info: unlimit.com, thetechisland.org

Who: Nadia Ivanova is the Chief Communications Officer (CCO) at Unlimit, responsible for driving the company's brand and communications strategy worldwide. She holds a degree in Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication and has over 10 years of experience in public affairs and marketing. Prior to Unlimit, she held various communications and PR positions within the oil, IT, and media industries. Nadia is passionate about fintech, empowering women in tech, and creating meaningful content. As of October 2023 she is also the co-leader of TechIsland's MarComms Community in Cyprus.