Financial services marketing is increasingly being shaped by the convergence of brand, customer experience, data and digital product design. Empower is responding by expanding its marketing organization with four senior appointments spanning customer experience, brand marketing, communications and user experience, bringing experience from Meta, Marriott International, IBM, Unilever and Zeno Group.

Empower is restructuring key parts of its marketing leadership as the retirement and wealth-management company places greater emphasis on consumer experience, brand relevance and digital engagement.

The company announced four senior appointments under Chief Marketing Officer Sangita Woerner: Prashant Gaba as Chief Customer Experience Officer, Kim Blanding as Head of Brand Marketing, Tracey Thiele as Head of Brand Communications and Patrick Strange as Head of User Experience.

The appointments bring expertise spanning customer experience, artificial intelligence, CRM, communications, product design and consumer marketing. Together, the roles indicate a marketing model that extends beyond campaign execution into the broader customer journey.

Gaba joins from Marriott International, where he led global customer growth initiatives and helped develop the company's customer experience and CRM strategy. His 25-year career also includes 15 years at IBM. At Empower, he will oversee customer experience strategy with an emphasis on data, insights and technology.

Blanding brings a different dimension to the organization. Most recently, she led global marketing for Meta's AI wearables portfolio, including Ray-Ban Meta and Quest. Her background also includes Unilever and consumer-product entrepreneurship. At Empower, she will lead brand marketing across campaigns, partnerships and consumer experiences.

Thiele joins after 16 years at Zeno Group, where she worked on brands including Netflix, Robinhood, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Team USA and Google. Her responsibilities at Empower span earned media, social, creator, executive and employee communications. The role brings corporate communications closer to the company's broader brand and consumer strategy.

Strange brings a product-design perspective to the leadership group. He spent a decade at Meta in senior roles covering content design, product design, business and payments platforms, and most recently worked at Mexican consumer-lending and buy-now-pay-later company Kueski. He will lead user experience at Empower.

The appointments come about a year after Empower appointed Woerner as its CMO. When she joined in September 2025, the company said her mandate included strengthening brand visibility, multi-channel marketing and customer engagement.

The organizational shift mirrors a broader change in financial-services marketing. Customer acquisition and retention are increasingly influenced by digital experiences, personalization and the quality of interactions across channels. McKinsey's September 2026 analysis says banks are using AI-powered personalization to tailor communications, offers and customer journeys, while stronger digital experiences are becoming increasingly important as fintech competitors raise consumer expectations.

For Empower, the new structure connects several traditionally separate disciplines. Customer experience, brand storytelling, communications and product UX can influence the same customer journey, from initial awareness through digital interaction and ongoing engagement.

That convergence is particularly relevant for a company operating across retirement services, financial planning and investments. Empower says it administers more than $2.1 trillion in assets for more than 20 million individuals.

The appointments therefore represent more than an expansion of marketing headcount. They establish senior ownership across the major components of a modern financial-services customer experience, with data, technology, brand and digital product design operating closer together.

Market Landscape

Financial-services companies are increasingly competing on digital experience, personalization and brand engagement alongside traditional products and pricing.

McKinsey's September 2026 research notes that digital-first financial providers are raising expectations for personalized experiences and that AI can help institutions tailor communications, offers and customer journeys.

The same research highlights the importance of integrating marketing performance data across channels and CRM systems, making the connection between marketing technology and customer experience increasingly important.

Empower's leadership structure reflects that convergence. Customer experience, brand marketing, communications and UX are being assigned dedicated senior leadership while remaining part of the company's broader marketing organization.

Strategic Outlook

The appointments point toward a customer-centric MarTech model in financial services, where marketing is increasingly connected to product experience and customer data rather than operating solely as a communications function.

For enterprise financial brands, that creates a need to coordinate CRM, analytics, personalization, content, social media, UX and marketing automation. AI adds another layer by enabling more individualized interactions and faster analysis of customer behavior.

The practical challenge will be maintaining consistency across those systems while meeting the trust, privacy and regulatory expectations associated with financial products.

Top Insights

• Empower is broadening marketing leadership, adding dedicated executives for customer experience, brand, communications and UX under CMO Sangita Woerner.
• Meta experience enters financial-services marketing, with Kim Blanding bringing leadership experience from AI wearables, consumer technology and global brand marketing.
• Customer experience gains dedicated leadership, as former Marriott and IBM executive Prashant Gaba takes responsibility for data-driven CX and CRM strategy.
• UX joins the marketing transformation, with former Meta and Kueski design executive Patrick Strange leading Empower's digital experience strategy.
• Financial marketing is becoming more integrated, as brand, customer data, digital products and personalized engagement increasingly converge across the customer journey.

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