Guillaume Bouvard is the COO, CMO, and co-founder of Extend. He founded the company with two friends and credits their success to complementary skill sets, trust, shared values, and education. Before starting Extend, Guillaume spent 12 years at American Express in various roles, advising the C-Suite as a leader of the Strategic Planning Group for several years. Before Amex, Guillaume led marketing efforts at Capital One and earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
In this episode, Guillaume and I discuss what Extend does, why it uniquely benefits marketers and agencies, and how they utilize marketing within their B2B2B model. Extend is a platform that turns business credit cards into a full spend management platform. They do not compete with banks but rather partner with them and empower them to offer better add-on products to their clients. Those banks then have to give Extend access to those clients, the real end users. This B2B2C or B2B2B model has unique challenges. Extend must be strategic about how it markets and communicates to its banking partners to gain access to cardholders and ensure the partnership is beneficial for all parties. Guillaume and his co-founders believe that effective marketing efforts continue well after customers walk in the door. Whether it be through cross-selling or continued engagement, you have to get them, keep them, and increase their usage. The nature of marketing is understanding how to create a strategy to influence consumers. Guillaume tells us that marketers and marketing agencies are a large portion of Extend users, and he outlines several use cases that highlight why.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Guillaume’s founding story and how he has found success with his two other friends
- What Extend does today in the virtual card and payment spaces
- How Extend conceptualizes marketing to support their goals
Key Highlights:
- [02:00] A friendship/business partner success story
- [05:37] Guillaume’s career path
- [08:20] What does Extend do?
- [09:40] Extend isn’t competing with banks; it is partnering with them.
- [11:30] How does extending help marketers specifically?
- [17:20] Getting banking partners to promote Extend
- [22:40] Halo benefits
- [24:10] The value added for banking partners
- [25:40] Organizing marketing to support GTM
- [29:05] Measuring the impact of marketing
- [32:30] Being pulled in two directions
- [37:30] Advice to your younger self
- [38:50] Everyone is talking about AI.
- [40:40] Brands to watch
- [42:50] The landscape is evolving. Marketers must do the same.
Resources Mentioned:
- Guillaume Bouvard
- Extend
- Co-founders and Leadership Team
- Prior stops in career: American Express, Capital One
- Brands mentioned: Decathalon, Patagonia
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Post-Production Credits:
Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.