Revolut is one of the fastest growing brands in the UK. Founded in 2015, the digital banking provider reached 1.5 million customers globally in February 2018, before gaining enough momentum to pass 15 million in February 2021, 50 million in November 2024, and then over 70 million in January 2026. If this growth weren’t enough, it received a full UK banking licence in March, enabling it to offer current accounts protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, among other products. But while the company has rapidly evolved from an upstart fintech to a recognised financial institution, Emily Lewis explains that its operations and its branding have remained largely consistent for much of its short history.
“We’ve always held ourselves to such high standards in terms of compliance and regulations. Nothing has changed there in the way we communicate with people,” she says.
As Revolut’s Head of Growth for the UK, Ireland and the Nordics, Lewis is responsible for ensuring the effectiveness of the company’s marketing. So far it seems like she and her colleagues have been doing a stellar job, given Revolut’s impressive growth, yet Lewis notes that the company’s transformation into a licensed bank, as well as its expansion internationally, has begun presenting some unique challenges and opportunities.
The challenge is how you maintain a consistent global brand and then speak to a local consumer
“In terms of fast growth, and how that might change how we present our brand, I think that’s where it gets interesting,” she explains. “And that’s where a lot of the marketers and members of the growth team at Revolut really thrive, where the challenge is always how do you maintain that consistent global brand, especially when we are on a global stage as Revolut, and then speak to a local consumer.”
Revolut’s vigorous growth also comes at a time of significant change in marketing, with Lewis acknowledging that AI is already boosting the efficiency and volume of operations. However, she also affirms that marketing will remain a creative, human-led activity, while partnerships and direct experiences will become as important as conventional ads, driving engagement in a way that can’t be routinely automated.
From brand activation to Head of Growth
Having been at marketing agency AKA UK between 2018 and 2020, and then at consumer brands group THG between 2020 and 2022, Lewis joined Revolut in April 2022. Her first role was as Brand Marketing Manager in the company’s global growth team, focusing primarily on developing an influencer marketing playbook that could work for Revolut. “We built that playbook, tested, learned, used loads of data to decide how it’s gonna work, and then we rolled out to the local teams,” she adds.
Lewis then joined Tobi Fink’s Brand Activation Team in January 2024, before becoming Senior Brand Marketing Manager in early 2025. She contributed to the conception, production and execution of several global growth campaigns, devising marketing concepts that would help establish Revolut’s global brand, but that could also be adapted to regional markets. She says, “We were always working from a global perspective and rolling out to make sure it suits the local teams and actually speaks to each market’s challenges.”
We’re always working from a global perspective and rolling out to make sure it suits the local teams and actually speaks to each market’s challenges
From January of this year, Lewis flipped to the other side of the global-local equation, becoming Head of Growth for Revolut’s UK, Ireland and Nordics region. While now focusing on a specific market, she attests that she “really benefitted from having that global perspective initially and understanding how the two teams can really work together.”
The focus of her work has also changed in another way. Previously, her marketing activities were centered more on “brand expression” and on how Revolut is represented globally (or locally), whereas now they’re centered more specifically on achieving growth. And while there’s plenty of overlap, Lewis explains that a role in growth differs from brand activation in terms of “how data-driven” decisions generally are.
She says, “If marketing is characterised as foraying more into the brand side of things and the creative side of things, this is really a super-hybrid role between keeping that creative mindset but making sure that we’re making these very data-backed decisions that actually do drive meaningful growth, but also valuable growth, and not just growth for growth’s sake.”
An obsession with data
Seeing the word ‘data,’ it may be tempting to assume that Revolut’s marketing activities have become even more data-led and -intensive in recent years, if only because AI may enable more number crunching. However, Lewis reveals that the company’s marketing teams have “always been absolutely obsessed” with data and how it can inform campaigns. “It is very much: what is the challenge, do we have data to back that challenge, is it just a feeling, and you really have to validate each of those decisions,” she says. “And then you come to the solution and that solution will always be validated by the data that we have.”
We figure out how to collect that data and use it in a way that’s beneficial to the consumer
One thing that has changed, however, is Revolut’s ability to collect and process more data in-house, as opposed to relying on external tools and services. Lewis adds, “We figure out how to collect that data and use it in a way that’s beneficial to the consumer, whether it’s providing products that are actually wanted and needed, or if it’s communicating with them in a way that’s meaningful instead of just kind of being a brand that’s out of touch and saying things we think might work.”
As Head of Growth, Lewis has led the marketing strategies for several campaigns since Revolut became a fully licensed bank in the UK, including the irreverent ‘Welcome to My Bank’ ads featuring Erling Haaland and Graham Norton. She explains that this particular campaign had the aim of conveying what Revolut being a bank would mean for the average UK consumer, and of guiding perceptions of its brand accordingly.
“I think that’s where partnering with someone like Graham Norton was a massive benefit for us. where we were able to identify him as a household name, as really well-loved in the UK,” she says. “And through using him as a face of the campaign, we’re able to show that we understand, that we’re a team on the ground in the UK, we understand how to speak to you.”
Lean teams take more responsibility
Given that Revolut has been expanding and evolving rapidly, observers may assume that it’s become a challenge to maintain consistent branding and messaging. Yet Lewis affirms that recent marketing efforts have “been pretty consistent with how we’ve been operating before,” and that Revolut still holds to the same core identity it had when it launched ten-plus years ago. On the other hand, one challenge that has arisen is “the temptation” to expand teams and headcounts in parallel with the company’s growth, something which Revolut has largely resisted up until now. For Lewis, this is because the firm has “always maintained quite lean teams,” something which actually comes with several advantages, including a strong sense of ownership.
“So we have people on the ground for every market, and then they feel very responsible for how they communicate the brand,” she says. “I think it’s that ownership that is where we’ve benefited from not rushing and hiring way too fast just because we’re growing very quickly.”
While AI can be used to make output more efficient and make the volume of output much larger, you have to always have that human touch
The mention of team sizes almost inevitably leads the conversation to AI, which has purportedly been one of the chief factors in several recent corporate layoffs, including Amazon and Block. Lewis acknowledges that the incorporation of AI has made certain activities easier and more efficient, and has helped marketing teams “create localised assets much quicker.” But she also explains that the human element will always be necessary in marketing, and not simply because you can’t let AI agents run and do their own thing.
“Marketing has to have that nuance and you can really see a company that doesn’t pay attention to nuance or is reactive to something that’s trending or a general sentiment in a local market,” she says. “While AI can be used to make output more efficient and make the volume of output much larger, you have to always have that human touch.”
The human touch assumes greater importance
The human touch is likely to become increasingly important in the future, particularly as consumers become more suspicious of potentially AI-generated content. And one way of ensuring such a touch, beyond retaining human staff, is to conduct more experiential campaigns and partnerships.
“With our partnership with Audi F1, we took the Audi Revolut show car across the country in the UK across 14 different stops,” Lewis explains. “We started in London at our office, but we wanted to go to those regions that often feel like they don’t get attention and London gets everything.”
Not only did this campaign tour the Audi Revolut car across the country, but it provided visitors to each installation with additional experiences, such as on-site video games, bringing value and engagement to people in a way that’s not possible with ads. And while Lewis believes that paid advertising will always have its place, particularly in terms of cultivating brand familiarity, she expects partnerships and experiences to go “hand in hand” with more conventional marketing.
“You have to drive an emotional response through those partnerships and those experiences,” she says. “And I think it’s bringing the two together where you become front of mind through repetition and frequency and then you drive an emotional connection through giving people something that they really value.”
Revolut is one of the fastest growing brands in the UK. Founded in 2015, the digital banking provider reached 1.5 million customers globally in February 2018, before gaining enough momentum to pass 15 million in February 2021, 50 million in November 2024, and then over 70 million in January 2026. If this growth weren’t enough, it received a full UK banking licence in March, enabling it to offer current accounts protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, among other products. But while the company has rapidly evolved from an upstart fintech to a recognised financial institution, Emily Lewis explains that its operations and its branding have remained largely consistent for much of its short history.
“We've always held ourselves to such high standards in terms of compliance and regulations. Nothing has changed there in the way we communicate with people,” she says.
As Revolut’s Head of Growth for the UK, Ireland and the Nordics, Lewis is responsible for ensuring the effectiveness of the company’s marketing. So far it seems like she and her colleagues have been doing a stellar job, given Revolut’s impressive growth, yet Lewis notes that the company’s transformation into a licensed bank, as well as its expansion internationally, has begun presenting some unique challenges and opportunities.
