How Is OakNorth Expanding While Staying Laser-Focused? | OakNorth’s Senior Director of Marketing Hugo Oliveira Sousa

Hugo Oliveira Sousa, Senior Director of Marketing at OakNorth Bank, talks about the bank’s main focus on helping what they call the “missing middle.” This means they aim to support mid-market and lower mid-market businesses that have unique growth needs. While they do offer some consumer products, their main goal is business banking.

Hugo explains how OakNorth tackles the different challenges businesses face, whether it’s property companies dealing with growth issues or trading businesses needing help with operations. Instead of just relying on market research, OakNorth collaborates with its customers, often inviting them in for discussions to create products together. For instance, customers can help decide whether to link with Xero or QuickBooks first.

This focused and team-oriented approach is also being brought to the US where OakNorth recently opened a representative office there and plans to use the same strategy of serving targeted customer segments rather than trying to appeal to everyone. Hugo points out that OakNorth’s growth plan is all about staying focused on understanding customer needs and building from there.