Gather lists

10 fintech and insurtech marketing leaders to watch in 2026

Fintech and insurtech might be the two hardest categories in B2B to make people care about. The products are technical, often invisible (the rails behind a checkout, the fraud check behind an approval), sold into cautious, regulated buyers, and the category conventions run beige. The marketing leaders below refuse the beige. They turn proprietary data into research the industry quotes, create new categories instead of fighting for share of old ones, and give infrastructure a brand people actually trust.

Published August 10, 2026 · compiled by the Gather team

How we picked this list

Every leader here (a) currently runs marketing at a fintech or insurtech company, (b) is building the brand in a competitive, still-growing company rather than coasting on incumbency, and (c) has something real to point to: original research, category creation, a brand breakthrough, or growth numbers behind the reputation. No pay-to-play, and no points for a title without the work behind it. Grouped loosely by what they do, not ranked.

The list

  1. 1. Nidhi Daga Cover Genius
  2. 2. Jonathan Soffin Marqeta
  3. 3. Dylan Steele Coalition
  4. 4. Erika White Navan
  5. 5. Lisa Khoury Federato
  6. 6. Martina Trucco At-Bay
  7. 7. Kathryn Cook Alloy
  8. 8. Jon Stona Airwallex
  9. 9. Dave Faupel Priority
  10. 10. Rory O'Neill Checkout.com
01

Nidhi Daga

Global SVP, Marketing · Cover Genius

LinkedIn

Why she is on this list

Cover Genius sells embedded protection, insurance that appears invisibly inside someone else's checkout, so the marketing challenge is making an invisible product legible to the platforms that carry it. Daga, who joined in 2026 after 15-plus years leading go-to-market at companies including J.P. Morgan, Abbott, and Omnicell, runs global brand and marketing for one of insurtech's few true unicorns.

The receipts

Cover Genius has protected more than 70 million customers through over 240 million policies sold via API integrations with some of the world's largest digital platforms, counts partners like Booking.com and Turkish Airlines, and raised a $70 million Series D led by Dawn Capital and, in July 2026, another $100 million at a $1.9 billion valuation.

The takeaway

When the product is embedded and invisible, brand is what makes it real to the partners who carry it. Marketing is the difference between infrastructure and a name people trust.

Sources: Cover Genius newsroom (covergenius.com); Series funding coverage

02

Jonathan Soffin

Chief Marketing Officer · Marqeta

LinkedIn

Why he is on this list

Marqeta powers the card behind the app, the invisible rails of modern embedded finance, which means its marketing has to make deeply technical infrastructure into a story executives want to hear. Soffin, who took the CMO seat in 2025 after leading brand and product marketing at Blackhawk Network, owns that translation.

The receipts

Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ) runs card programs at massive scale and publishes original research like its annual State of Credit report, built on a survey of 5,000 respondents, 4,000 consumers and 1,000 small businesses, across the US and UK, turning proprietary data into content that positions the brand well beyond the plumbing.

The takeaway

The most technical infrastructure companies win marketing by publishing what they uniquely see. Original data makes invisible rails visible.

Sources: Marqeta CMO announcement, September 2025; Marqeta 2026 State of Credit Report

03

Dylan Steele

Chief Marketing Officer · Coalition

LinkedIn

Why he is on this list

Coalition created Active Insurance, a category that fuses cyber insurance with security tooling, and Steele (ex-Splunk, where he helped build the Data-to-Everything category, and Salesforce) is the marketer tasked with teaching the market a genuinely new idea.

The receipts

Coalition reached a $5 billion valuation in its 2022 Series F, struck a global partnership making it Allianz's exclusive cyber partner across commercial segments, and turns its claims and threat data into reports both the security and insurance industries cite.

The takeaway

Category creation is a marketing discipline. The companies that name a new category get to set its terms, and Coalition's data is what makes the claim credible.

Sources: Coalition announcements (coalitioninc.com); Allianz partnership coverage

04

Erika White

Chief Marketing Officer · Navan

LinkedIn

Why she is on this list

Navan competes for corporate travel and expense against entrenched incumbents, and White, who spent five-plus years leading marketing and communications at Affirm through its 2021 IPO, joined Navan in March 2025 and was promoted to CMO in January 2026 after running the marketing behind the company's own public debut.

The receipts

Navan (NASDAQ: NAVN) went public in October 2025, with White treating the IPO as a multi-week demand-gen campaign complete with a New York out-of-home takeover. The company posted $220 million in revenue in its most recent quarter, up 40% year over year, serves more than 10,000 companies, and publishes its annual State of Corporate Travel and Expense report with Skift, built on a survey of nearly 1,800 travel and finance insiders, plus a Business Travel Index validated by Nasdaq's economics team.

The takeaway

In a category prone to boring, original research is how you sound like an authority instead of a vendor, and an IPO is a brand moment if marketing treats it like one.

Sources: Navan leadership page (navan.com); Campaign US CMO announcement, January 2026; Navan Q1 FY2027 results

05

Lisa Khoury

Chief Marketing Officer · Federato

LinkedIn

Why she is on this list

Federato sells AI-native underwriting software to insurance carriers and MGAs, some of the most conservative buyers in the industry, under a category banner it coined itself: RiskOps. Khoury, who joined as VP of Marketing in 2024 after marketing leadership roles at Compass, Attentive, and embedded-insurance platform Boost, was promoted to CMO in December 2025 with an explicit mandate to build the category.

The receipts

Federato raised a $100 million Series D led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives in November 2025, tripled revenue in the year after its Series C, counts carriers like Nationwide and QBE as customers, and stood up its inaugural Insurance Leadership Summit in June 2026, with speakers from Goldman Sachs and Anthropic, within six months of Khoury taking the CMO seat.

The takeaway

Category creation needs a drumbeat. Naming the category is step one; giving the industry a flagship event and a reason to gather around it is what makes the name stick.

Sources: Federato announcements (federato.ai); Series D coverage, November 2025

06

Martina Trucco

Chief Marketing Officer · At-Bay

LinkedIn

Why she is on this list

At-Bay pairs cyber insurance with security services under the banner InsurSec, and Trucco (previously VP of Corporate Marketing at revenue-tech unicorn Clari) has driven the brand behind that positioning since joining as Head of Marketing in 2022; she was promoted to CMO in 2024.

The receipts

At-Bay protects tens of thousands of businesses representing more than $800 billion in revenue, reached a $1.35 billion valuation in 2021, and uses its own claims data to publish security guidance, turning an insurer into a trusted security voice.

The takeaway

Combining two categories only works if marketing can make the combination legible. At-Bay's data-backed content is what sells the insurance-plus-security idea.

Sources: At-Bay CMO announcement, March 2024 (at-bay.com); At-Bay company data

07

Kathryn Cook

Chief Marketing Officer · Alloy

LinkedIn

Why she is on this list

Alloy sits behind the scenes at banks and fintechs, deciding who gets approved and who gets flagged for fraud, which makes its marketing a challenge of building trust in invisible infrastructure. Cook, who joined in 2024 after nine years helping scale nCino, leads that effort.

The receipts

Alloy serves more than 900 of the world's financial institutions and fintechs, including names like Ally and Carta, and has posted triple-digit growth in the UK since launching there in 2022 while expanding its product line into fraud monitoring and embedded finance.

The takeaway

Infrastructure brands earn trust by being the clearest, most credible expert on the problem they solve. In fraud and identity, authority is the whole pitch.

Sources: Alloy CMO announcement, July 2024 (alloy.com); company data

08

Jon Stona

Vice President, Global Marketing · Airwallex

LinkedIn

Why he is on this list

Airwallex is building global financial infrastructure for businesses, and Stona (ex-Stripe, Google, Nike) has a pointed thesis that most marketing teams skip the step that matters most: product marketing before performance. He has built the brand of one of the largest-ever Australian venture stories around that belief.

The receipts

Airwallex serves more than 200,000 businesses directly, surpassed $1.3 billion in annualized revenue (up roughly 74% year over year) with more than $287 billion in annualized payment volume, and reached an $11 billion valuation in its June 2026 Series H.

The takeaway

Product marketing first, then brand and performance. Getting the story right before spending on reach is how infrastructure brands scale efficiently.

Sources: Airwallex Series H announcement, June 2026; company data

09

Dave Faupel

Chief Marketing Officer · Priority

LinkedIn

Why he is on this list

Priority runs a unified commerce engine, combining payments, banking, and treasury in one platform, and Faupel (previously VP of Marketing for North America at Sage) leads the brand as the company positions itself as payments-infrastructure-as-a-service.

The receipts

Priority (NASDAQ: PRTH) operates across SMB, B2B, and enterprise payments segments with a workforce of more than 1,000, and Faupel, CMO since 2020, leads marketing as the company scales its unified-commerce story.

The takeaway

When you sell infrastructure that stitches several products together, marketing's job is to make the one-platform story simple. Clarity is the product.

Sources: Priority CMO announcement (businesswire.com); company data

10

Rory O'Neill

Chief Marketing Officer · Checkout.com

LinkedIn

Why he is on this list

Checkout.com sells payments infrastructure to some of the world's largest enterprises, and O'Neill, who came to the company after five years as CMO of payments firm Planet and global marketing roles at Samsung and BlackBerry, relaunched the brand around a single line, Where the world checks out, while positioning the company for agentic commerce.

The receipts

Checkout.com returned to full-year profitability in 2025 while processing more than $300 billion in payment volume, up 64% year over year, grew net revenue more than 30% for the second consecutive year, serves 1,000-plus enterprise merchants including Uber, eBay, and Spotify, and set a $12 billion valuation in 2025 alongside an employee share buyback. Its original research, like a global Generation Alpha spending study, keeps the brand in the trade press.

The takeaway

When you sell invisible rails, a memorable brand line and data the industry wants to quote are what make the infrastructure feel inevitable.

Sources: Checkout.com newsroom (checkout.com); FY2025 results, February 2026

Every leader here publishes what they uniquely see.

That is the pattern. Original research is what separates an authority from a vendor. Gather runs the research and turns it into the report, continuously.

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